Allen Klein: Rock’s Greatest Money Man…Or Greatest Cheat?
Allen Klein: The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones, and Transformed Rock & Roll By Fred Goodman Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 320 pp., $27 “Don’t talk to me about ethics. Every man makes his own. It’s like a war. You choose your side early on and from then on,…
It’s Fall Out Boy’s Big Summer Adventure — Come Along For the Ride
If it seems like just yesterday that Fall Out Boy was in Houston, that’s because they played at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in March. On Friday, though, they’ll bring their “Boys of Zummer” joint tour with Wiz Khalifa to Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, separate from the Rodeo and…
Ben Hall Signed Dave Wilson’s Trans-Phobic Petition to Amend City Charter
Houston Community College Trustee and ardent anti-LGBT rights activist Dave Wilson is at it again. Wilson is currently best known as a rather controversial trustee for Houston Community College, but he has other interests as well. In addition to his passion for education, or whatever, he’s also a dedicated anti-LGBT…
Marilyn Minter’s Pretty/Dirty Challenges Our Ideas About Beauty And Desire
Marilyn Minter is the type of artist whose work provokes strong reactions from people, as she addresses themes of glamour, sex, and the ways in which femininity and desire are portrayed in our society. Her first major retrospective, Pretty/Dirty, presents many examples of the artist’s work spanning from the late…
Fresh, Healthy Vietnamese at Ky Ans Kitchen in Sugar Land
Ky Ans Kitchen should have opened somewhere inside the loop. Had they done that, they would be packed to the hilt all day, every day. Instead, they are located in Sugar Land off Highway 6 near West Airport, occupying a corner unit in a strip mall that is sort of…
2015 NFL Fantasy Crime League Update: Titans WR Justin Hunter Nabbed For Felonious Assault
Maybe it’s always been this way and I just didn’t notice, maybe this year is just a little bit different, but I had no idea that the Fourth of July was such a treasure trove for NFL offseason chicanery. Of course, we had the fireworks mishaps that saw not one,…
Refused Are Dead to Me Now
Flashback time: 2012. It was one of most exciting times of my life, not least because my favorite band, At the Drive-In, was reuniting. At the same time Refused, another favorite, announced their own reunion. Two of the biggest band-reunion dreams of my lifetime were coming true at the same…
J-Dawg’s Street Talk Leads Off This Week’s #NewHoustonRap Songs
X J-Dawg, “Forever and a Day” Alphabetically, this would fit somewhere in the middle, but not here. You don’t understand where J-Dawg ranks in the lineage of street Houston rappers. All of them find a way to convey emotion onto their records, but nobody damn near makes you want to…
Up Close: Gig Night With Giant Kitty
It’s show night for Giant Kitty, the newly restructured unit that is now self-described as “75 percent female indie rock/punk/whatever.” The band members arrive to Rudyard’s separately, but all at roughly the same time, about a quarter til nine on a Friday night for a bill that’s packed. They’ll be…
Memorial Park Demonstration Opponents Say Buffalo Bayou is Doing Just Fine
Buffalo Bayou is doing just fine in the wake of the Memorial Day floods, according to the opponents of the Memorial Park Demonstration Project. The Memorial Park Demonstration project seeks to reroute and reshape a section of Buffalo Bayou that runs through Memorial Park and the River Oaks Golf Course…
CancerForward Loses Four Board Members
Four members of the nonprofit CancerForward board of directors stepped down last week, in the wake of a Houston Press story that questioned how approximately half of the organization’s money has been spent. Two of the members, Albert “Bo” Bothe Jr. and Brian Cruver, were also co-founders. The two other…
Saint Arnold’s Tour Food Doesn’t Measure Up to its Premium Beer
Eating in the Saint Arnold Brewing Company tour hall feels a bit like you stumbled into a half-hearted homage to the Sword and Crown restaurant from circa-1995 AstroWorld. The cavernous space is filled with long wooden tables and benches arranged for communal dining, anchored at either end by tap walls…
Zapruder Analysis of Shark Attack on Surfer Mick Fanning on Live TV
People, let’s just leave the animals alone, ok? Stay out of their habitat? Can we do that? I’m not sure how many horrific stories or near misses we need to have before humans realize that mixing with wild creatures, on land and at sea, whose default switch is set at…
Site-specific Installation Uses 10,000 Sticks and 30,000 Wooden Matchsticks
Ben Butler’s site-specific installation at Rice Gallery, Unbounded, is a dream project for anybody who ever got lost playing with Lincoln Logs, an Erector Set, LEGO® bricks or Tinkertoy® building sets. This is a man who, self-admittedly, has always been drawn to really repetitive work. He began with a small…
Varsity Brands Owns Cheerleading and Fights to Keep it From Becoming an Official Sport
A fast-paced bass thumps through the gym as a trio of girls grips a smaller teen and hoists her into the air, squatting and driving upward with such force that the spring-loaded floors bounce a bit beneath them. Alone, above it all, she pulls her left leg up until her…
This Week in Houston Food Blogs: Blogging on Bramble and SaltAir
There have been a lot of exciting things happening lately in the Houston restaurant scene, and these bloggers haven’t missed a beat! We’ll see what they have to say about both Bramble and SaltAir, as well as some other eatery reviews and fun summer recipes. Tarel of The Hungry Rells…
EverQuest Let Me Be the Hero Mental Illness Wouldn’t In Real Life
It’s easy to see online gaming as a just a hobby, but for me it was a chance to be something that the real world often almost always denied me because of my mental problems; the chance to be needed and appreciated. I have always felt a bit different. I…
“Crafting a Continuum” is a Glorious Shopper’s Hell
I begin by quoting a friend of mine quoting a friend of hers: “I hate museums. They’re a shopper’s hell. So many beautiful things and nothing to buy.” So if you’re a shopper, steel yourself — prepare for hell — as you enter the exhibition “Crafting a Continuum: Rethinking Contemporary Craft,”…
Here’s Where to Drink in Houston on National Tequila Day
Great news, tequila lovers! National Tequila Day is this Friday, July 24. From tequila flights to special cocteles, we’ve got a round up of the coolest drink specials in town. Viva Tequila! Añejo Tex-Mex 1180-1 Uptown Park, 713-963-9032 This Tex-Mex spot’s specials will include $5.50 Dulce Vita Margaritas and a…
NASA’s Navel-Gazing Is Producing Awesome Photos of Earth
On Monday a NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory sent back a new photo of planet Earth. It’s been years and years since the famed “Blue Marble” photo was taken from Apollo 17. The photo was taken using NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera and put together as seen…
Upcoming: Billy Idol, Booker T. Jones, Diana Krall, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Janet Jackson, Thundercat, etc.
25th Annual Houston International Jazz Festival: Fri., July 31, 5 p.m.; Sat., August 1, 7 p.m.; Sun., August 2, 11:30 a.m., $25 to $125. Bayou Music Center, 520 Texas, Houston, 713-225-8551. Adam Carroll: Tue., September 22, 7:30 p.m., $20 to $22. McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, 2425 Norfolk, Houston, 713-528-5999. Afton Live:…
Woodlands Crowd Kicks Up Its Heels to Avetts & Old Crow Boys
The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion July 17, 2015 Folksy bluegrass met badass rock and roll Friday night at Cynthia Woods Pavilion when Old Crow Medicine Show and The Avett Brothers took the stage. Old Crow kicked off the evening with an evolving set that…
B L A C K I E Is Back With 2015’s Best Summer Jam
Characterizing any artist as “avant-garde” implies analytical laziness. Critics labor to find words and phrases to describe aesthetically challenging works with words like “innovative,” “cutting-edge” and “radical.” Worst of all is “experimental,” whatever that means. Sometimes the music must go in an artist’s direction in spite of its incomprehensibility. For…
Two Barges Collided Near the Houston Ship Channel. Again.
It’s happened again. On Monday morning another pair of barges smacked into each other near Bolivar Penninsula, sparking a fire on one of the barges. There were two tugboats pushing four barges near the entrance of the Houston Ship Channel when one of the boats lost power. After two of…
Tell Us Who You Love With the Best of Houston® 2015 Readers’ Choice Nominations
If you don’t already have October 8 marked down on your calendar with multiple exclamation points, go ahead and make a note because that’s the day the Best of Houston® 2015 winners get announced. But before we can get to the business of announcing winners, there’s another part to the Best of…
Rockets Stay In Western Conference Arms Race, Acquire PG Ty Lawson
Last season, the core, non-LeBron strength of the NBA resided in the Western Conference. Actually, in the Western Conference’s top five teams, to be exact. The only thing keeping that epicenter from being the top six teams in the West was a foot injury to Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant. Come the…
Lawyers in Death Row Case Accuse Kelly Siegler of Withholding Evidence
Lawyers for a man on death row for a 1994 murder say that ex-Harris County prosecutor Kelly Siegler, under fire for withholding evidence in a high-profile murder case, also withheld vital evidence in theirs, the Houston Chronicle reports. Howard Guidry was one of three men convicted in the contract-killing of…
Sanders Draws Huge Crowd in Houston
As he scooped all the left-behind water bottles and “Bernie” pins and “Bernie” stickers into a clear plastic garbage bag, Matthew Perez thought, “that was pretty good.” A crowd of about 5,000 had just filed out of Hofheinz Pavilion Sunday night, after Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders spoke of fixing…
Deep Cuts, Guests Give House of Creeps a Sweet Saturday Night
Deep Cuts, Ratboys, Dollie Barnes, Michael Parallax Houston House of Creeps July 18, 2015 On Saturday, House of Creeps hosted what was arguably one of the best lineups in the venue’s recent history, proving yet again why it has become one of the longest-standing DIY venues in Houston. The sweltering…
Mother-Daughter Authors Celebrated at Houston Public Library Event
The air was filled with excitement on Saturday afternoon at the McCrane-Kashmere Gardens Neighborhood branch of the Houston Public Library. Fans were there to see 2012 NAACP Image Award winner ReShonda Tate Billingsley, author of more than 35 books, for a short talk and book signing in association with the…
Introspective New Video Series Asks GamerGate “Why Are You So Angry?”
It’s hard enough to describe to people exactly what GamerGate was sometimes without delving into the harder question of why it was. Ian Danskin of Innuendo Studios has put out a six-part video essay series on that very subject called Why Are You So Angry? that explores the rage at…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 79: Chocolates At Cacao & Cardamom
Over the past few years, chocolatier Annie Rupani has gone from showcasing her glossy, exotic chocolates at special events to eventually landing a storefront operation in the ritzy Galleria shopping area. Inside is a glass showcase of the treats of the day, and the walls are lined with chocolate bars…
Texans RB Arian Foster Randomly Decides To Buy College Books For A Twitter Follower
Training camp will be here soon enough, and you can probably set your watch to it — at some point during camp, Arian Foster will say or do something that will get the media’s collective panties into a wad. We all remember last season, when Foster took new head coach…
Maps that Climate Change Naysayers Must See
Just in case anyone out there is still taking a Rick Perry-ish stance on climate change (lest we forget, the GOP presidential candidate once gave us this gem: “calling CO2 a pollutant is doing a disservice to the country…and the world”), nonprofit news organization Climate Central has given us yet…
Dish of the Week: Shrimp and Grits
From classic comfort foods to regional standouts and desserts, we’ll be sharing a new recipe with you each week. Find other dishes of the week here. This week, we’re covering good ol’ fashioned Shrimp and Grits. The word grits is derived from the Old English word “grytt,” – meaning coarse…
Less is More: Artist’s Excavations Reveal Hidden Layers and Meaning
From a distance, the drawings seem like pages taken from a vintage book on ornithology, with muted, matte colors and the Latin name below in spindly script. It’s only upon closer inspection that the images in Jed Foronda’s “Metamorphosis” exhibit at McMurtrey Gallery reveal themselves to be multi-layered creations, often…
What These Guys and Dolls Need is More Rehearsal Time
The set up: Ah, Guys and Dolls, the prohibition-era show about gambling gangsters and the women who love them. It’s one of those musicals that people who don’t really like musicals still like. And for folks who do, it’s been dubbed as close to a near perfect musical comedy as…
The Chron’s Most Influential Sports Houstonian List Ignores Actual Influential People
The Houston Chronicle released it’s list of the 10 most influential Houstonians in sports yesterday. And of course, being the Chronicle, the list was primarily a joke. J.J. Watt’s listed, but not Arian Foster. UH football coach Tom Herman’s listed, and he’s yet to even coach a football game. Then…
This Week in Houston Food Events: French Mystery Tour With Phaedra Cook
All Week Colombian Independence Day at Liberty and BRC From Monday through Sunday, you can check out special Colombian offerings at every Liberty Kitchen location, as well as BRC Gastropub. Each restaurant will offer beef and potato empanadas with aji pique sauce; the Liberty Kitchen & Oyster Bar at 1050…
Steely Dan & Elvis Costello, Classic Rock’s Distinguished Gentlemen
Steely Dan, Elvis Costello & the Impostors Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion July 18, 2015 For a band that has put out only two studio albums in the past nearly 35 years, Steely Dan (well, actually co-founders Donald Fagen, Walter Becker, and a rotating slew of crack studio and stage musicians),…
Death Grips Turned Fitz Into a Really Aggressive Sauna
Death Grips Fitzgerald’s July 17, 2015 Do you ever wish you could experience a concert through someone else’s perspective? There’s this idea in some works of science fiction, Rant and Eclipse Phase being two examples, that in the future we’ll all have computers in our brain and will able to record…
The Five Best Concerts In Houston This Week: Zella Day, Sublime With Rome, Hustlers Brass Band, B.J. Thomas, etc.
Zella Day House of Blues, July 21 If Zella Day sounds a little precocious, it’s no accident. The 20-year-old singer-songwriter’s parents ran a coffeehouse in Pinetop, Ariz., a remote town on the eastern fringes of the Tonto National Forest, and young Zella was hopping onstage at its open-mike nights by…
Bernie Sanders Event Bumps to Bigger Venue
Bernie needs a bigger building. According to a press release on his website, Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders’ scheduled campaign event in Houston has moved from the 1,500-capacity Cullen Performance Hall to a much larger venue, Hofheinz Pavilion. The 45-year-old multi-purpose arena at the University of Houston will host the…
HFD Chief Dismisses Questions About Flood Response as “Rhetoric”
In an internal memo, Houston Fire Department Chief Terry Garrison acknowledged that HFD needs to overhaul its budget and better train firefighters in swift water rescues— and then, later in the same memo, he reduced the recent questions about HFD’s handling of the Memorial Day flood to nothing more than…
State Jail Commission Cites Waller County Officials After Investigating Sandra Bland’s Death
In the wake of a woman’s in-custody death that has gained national attention and suspicion, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards on Thursday cited the Waller County Jail for sub-standard training in how to handle potentially suicidal and mentally disabled inmates. The jail was also cited for failure to personally…
Context Is Thrown Out With the Bathwater in a Stylish The Drowning Girls
The set up: For most people, time spent in a hot bath is meant to soak away the day’s troubles. For Bessie Munday, Alice Burnham and Margaret Lloyd, time spent in a bath meant soaking away the days, permanently. All three women were the victims of the “Brides in the…
The (Instagram) Hero that Houston Deserves
Calling all comic book nerds across the city: It’s time to drop your action hero toys and stop watching cartoon reruns because Houston has basically turned into Gotham. We have a real-life Batman to call our very own. Well, not a real Batman, exactly. But a young-ish dude who likes…
Imagine Dragons Are in Their Element at Toyota Center
Imagine Dragons, Metric Toyota Center July 16, 2015 Fans of Halsey were presumably pretty bummed out when she didn’t to take the stage to open for Metric and Imagine Dragons at Toyota Center Thursday night. Knocked down for the count thanks to some nasty surgeries — her wisdom teeth were…
Reviews For The Easily Distracted: Ant-Man
Title: Ant-Man Describe This Movie In One Simpsons Quote: “And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.” Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To…
Tyler, the Creator Feeds Off Adolescent Angst at Warehouse Live
Tyler, the Creator Warehouse Live July 16, 2015 What does it mean to be a Tyler, the Creator fan in 2015? The apex of the Odd Future wave was 2011, when “Yonkers” exploded into a black-and-white punk declaration and everyone wanted a piece of them. If you were starting high…
World Whiskey Author Dave Broom Holds a Seminar at Reserve 101
This week some whiskey fans in Houston were lucky enough to have a chance to meet one of the world’s premier whiskey authors, Dave Broom. On his way to Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, the largest convention for bartenders and spirit experts in America, Broom stopped into Reserve…
Is Laser Technology About to Make Houston Better for Bikers?
For more than two years, Richard Tomlinson and the Houston Ghost Bike group pushed for a sit-down meeting with the city to discuss a way to make Houston’s streets safer for cyclists. They finally got a seat at the table Wednesday, and all it took was the promise of free stuff…
Ultimate Louisiana Party Takes Over Dan Electro’s This Weekend
A Jade Helm-style invasion of Dan Electro’s by Louisiana musicians instead of Special Forces troops, the Ultimate Louisiana Party moves into the Heights dive Saturday and Sunday. A smorgasbord of Louisiana music that ranges from blues to soul to rap, the two-day event is literally a something-for-everyone lineup. Headliners are…
Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson Put on the Feel-Good Show of the Summer
Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, Cage NRG Arena July 16, 2015 The pale, skinny man in a corset with his ass hanging out on MTV. The bald man with a guitar and a “Zero” shirt. The alien with red hair and a Ken doll crotch. The vampire in black who thinks…
Houston’s 5 Best Weekend Food Bets: Foie Gras Friday & a Food Truck Fest
Foie Gras Friday @ Bernie’s Burger Bus Friday, 11 a.m. 5407 Bellaire In honor of the concept’s 5th anniversary, Justin Turner is unleashing a slew of extra special dishes. First up: Foie Gras Friday at the bus’s brick-and-mortar on Bellaire, featuring the “The Dean” – a house-ground burger topped with…
Elvis Costello’s Best Bitter Ballads Not Named “Alison”
Tomorrow night Elvis Costello and the Imposters will make their triumphant return to Houston at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, opening for Steely Dan. Fans might notice that this is the first time Costello has been to Houston since he played the Pavilion opening for the Police in 2008. Who knows when…
Josh Smith Spurns Rockets, Signs With the Los Angeles Clippers
When an NBA free agent with the impact of DeAndre Jordan changes his mind and decides to recant on his verbal commitment to the Dallas Mavericks and return to the Los Angeles Clippers, the ripple effects reach beyond just those two teams. As one of the other contenders in the…
Madisons Are An Austin Band With A Houston Vibe
If you’re a visiting band from Austin vying for attention outside your (ahem) city limits, how might you accomplish that? Sure, killer songs help. Lots of bands have those, though. Maybe your group is photogenic. We all know that can’t hurt. Possibly you’re industrious enough to reach out to the…
The Continental Club at 15: “We Could See the Potential Around Here”
It might be hard to believe today, with all the construction happening in the blocks around Main and Alabama, but once the Continental Club practically had the neighborhood all to itself. This was long before the area had light-rail service, a cluster of like-minded businesses – restaurants (Tacos a Go-Go;…
Donald Trump Tweeted at Rick Perry Again and Hilarity Ensued
Donald Trump is running for the GOP nod for president. Somehow the rich guy with the worst toupee/combover/what-the-hell-is-that-on-his-head has become a “frontrunner” in the already crowded race. Meanwhile, former-Gov. Rick Perry is also out in the field trying to finagle the Republican nomination for himself. The two began clashing earlier…
Upcoming Houston Food Events: Ice Cream is Better with Booze
New happy hour alert! BRC Gastropub, 519 Shepherd, launched a new happy hour, called Apps & Taps, this past Monday. The weekday special will feature seven different appetizers for $5 and select American craft beers on tap for $4 (selections change daily). The menu incorporates some new items, including Southwest…
Openings and Closings in Houston: An Unusual Seafood Option in River Oaks
Saltair Seafood Kitchen at 3029 Kirby is open for business, with an unusual taste aesthetic for a Gulf Coast seafood joint. Greg Morago at the Houston Chronicle explored the menu and found its fresh fare reminiscent of the cuisine of Southern California, with elements of Asian, Mediterranean and other flavors…
The 5 Best Things to Do in Houston This Weekend: Smokey Joe’s Cafe and More
When Vanessa Sonon was a kid, her dad liked listening to music when they were traveling, but “he would only listen to the oldies,” she said. Turns out that stood her in good stead after she was cast in the Theatre Under the Stars production of Smokey Joe’s Cafe with…
Tonight: Death Grips vs. B L A C K I E, Round 2
If you want to irritate a ride-or-die Death Grips devotee to the point of a conniption fit, watch them stroke out when B L A C K I E’s name surfaces. One of the most tirelessly antiquated and nonsensical arguments concerning the B L A C K I E vs…
The Astros Hopefully Begin the Playoff Push
There are 71 games remaining in the Astros season, starting tonight when they host the Texas Rangers. The Astros are in the midst of a six game losing streak that has seen the team fall into second place in the AL West after leading the division for most of the…
Houston’s 10 Best Bars to Relieve Boredom
July is National Anti-Boredom Month. We all can get stuck in a rut sometimes and need to shake things up and go out and do something fun and different to relieve this condition. Here are some bars here in Houston we think will help with this process, not only in…
Rad Rich Puts ‘Afro-Punk’ Into the Present Tense
Since the mid-1980s, Rad Rich has been much more than an uber-fan in Houston’s thriving underground culture. Early on, he was omnipresent at gigs from Black Flag, MDC, and the Descendents to the Hickoids and Party Owls. As the 1990s began to hum, he jumpstarted KPFT-FM’s “Big Ska Night Out”…
The 10 Best Concerts In Houston This Weekend: Old Crow Medicine Show, Nicki Minaj, Steely Dan/Elvis Costello, etc.
The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, July 17 Like the “Wheels of Soul” package the weekend before, this is the kind of summer tour we don’t see enough of, but is hopefully increasing in frequency. In the broadest possible terms, both bands here share a…
Rangers Investigating Woman’s Death in Waller County Jail
What started with an improper lane change July 10 ended with a woman’s death in Waller County Jail three days later, and now the Texas Rangers are investigating. Sandra Good, 28, was found unresponsive in her cell on the morning of July 13 from “what appears to be self-inflicted asphyxiation,”…
The Definitive “2015 Summer of Gronk” Video Library
It’s been quite a summer for Rob Gronkowski. The New England Patriots’ tight end has been all over the place, partying with other celebrities, enjoying the fame that he’s earned. He’s doing everything a 20-something sports hero with millions of dollars should be doing, and while he hasn’t filled the…
Texas Investigating Allegations Planned Parenthood Sold Fetal Organs
Texas officials have announced no less than three separate investigations into Planned Parenthood’s operations in the state on the heels of an undercover video shot by an anti-abortion group that claims the organization sells the organs of aborted fetuses for profit. An anti-abortion group called the Center for Medical Progress…
‘Another Period’ Is Comedy Central’s Hilarious Distillation of 99-Percenter Rage
Few networks are as willing to bet on new voices as Comedy Central. The network’s hustling approach to original programming has yielded such breakout hits as Broad City, Inside Amy Schumer, and Key & Peele — some of the freshest and most distinctive shows of the last few years. Just three…
A Fistful of Jello: Houston’s Top Dance Party Welcomes Punk Legend Biafra
It’s easy to forget our favorite musicians were first and foremost music fans. If the artist in question has also fronted a seminal punk band, been at the center of a landmark obscenity case and been touted as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, those origins are…
Podcast: The Taming of Amy Schumer
While Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer’s new movie Trainwreck is “occasionally very funny, it also feels carefully constructed to make its points, chief among them that men can get away with all kinds of bad or crazy behavior that women can’t,” writes Village Voice film critic Stephanie Zacharek in her…
Texas Won’t Give Birth Certificates to Children of Undocumented Women
State officials have refused to give an untold number of Texas-born children birth certificates due to their parents’ immigration status, according to a lawsuit that was filed earlier this year. More than a dozen undocumented women have sued the Department of State Health Services, saying workers at state vital statistics…
Doctor Who: A Crazy New Theory on Who Maisie Williams Is Playing
Whovians got a real treat with the release of the trailer for Series 9. To be completely fanboyish for a moment, it looks amazing. The monsters look amazing, Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman look amazing, The Master looks amazing, just every single second had me going “I am totally in…
While Waiting For Blue Bell’s Return, Why Not Give Houston’s Honey Child’s Sweet Creams a Try?
Kathleen Morgan is a determined young entrepreneur in Houston. She decided she could make better ice cream with natural ingredients and renting space in a commercial kitchen gave her a chance to do just that. Now available at Urban Harvest, Antidote Coffee in the Heights and Mam’s Snoballs in the…
10 Takeaways From Last Night’s 2015 ESPY Awards
Never have so many people argued, laughed, and cried over fabricated awards concocted largely for the purpose of a television behemoth promoting its favorite thing — itself. But that’s that the ESPY Awards have become — ESPN’s annual party to celebrate celebrities, athletes, achievement, and ESPN! What they lack in…
Get to Know Houston’s Snarling Snooty Garbagemen
Bands start up in Houston almost on a daily basis, but few with the pedigree of Snooty Garbagemen. In 2013, Tom Triplett (OBN III’s, Blaxxx, about 50 other bands, started the group as a collaborative project with close friend Josh Wolf of Secret Prostitutes, Sick Abuse, Crime Wave, and more…
The Value of Seeing Billy Corgan and Marilyn Manson in 2015
Can you put a price on nostalgia? This summer, Houston is bedazzled by nostalgia acts hitting the touring circuit, and the price has never been higher. As interest in seeing these aging rock stars grows and grows among the current generation of backwards-looking teenagers, enabled by the Internet to discover…
My Wife Refuses to Work. Help!
MY PARENTS ARE NOT SUPPORTIVE OF ME Dear Willie D: I just received a job promotion, and I plan to invite my closest friends and relatives, but not my parents. They almost never support anything important to me. When I was in high school, they didn’t attend any of my…
‘Pimp C’s Trill Life Story’ Is Tough to Put Down
$WEET JONE$: Pimp C’s Trill Life Story By Julia Beverly Paperback, 726 pp., $24.99 Mythmaking is part of writing a biography. Whatever research you’ve dedicated to certain stories or tall tales, the more the myth grows. In the larger context, any myth about Pimp C may give you a myriad of…
The Strange History of a Squatter’s Heights Property
For at least two years, the Heights residents who lived near the vacant 731 E. 8th St. complained about rats crawling around the property and the stench of gasoline. No one had occupied the parcel ever since the semi-employed lawyer who lived in a converted garage apartment, Parnell Stockstill, died…
5 Things We’ve Learned About Pluto So Far
After NASA’s New Horizons probe swooped past Pluto on Tuesday morning, NASA scientists had to settle in and wait to find out Tuesday night whether the drive-by had been a success and if the probe had actually survived to do the rest of its mission — comprised of transmitting a…
The Longest Con: Your 2015 SDCC Wrap-Up
You may be aware, if you’ve been within boomstick range of a computer at any point since Thursday, that the San Diego Comic-Con took place last weekend. I attended the Con once, in 2012, but various circumstances have prevented me from doing so again. I actually had a pretty good…
Danzig Sounds Strong Sticking to His Own Songs
Danzig Bayou Music Center July 14, 2015 A gray demonic cloud escorted Glenn Danzig’s tour bus towards Bayou Music Center on Tuesday, as Houston prepared to host two of the ‘90s’ darkest musicians within the span of a few days: Danzig last night and Marilyn Manson on Thursday (at NRG…
Gambling! The ESPY’s Are Tonight, and You Can Bet on Caitlyn Jenner’s Cleavage
Imagine for a second that it’s the summer of 1976. For those of you who were actually alive and self-aware in the summer of 1976, this exercise should be easy. If you weren’t alive back then, use your imagination. So it’s summer of 1976, and the Olympics are in…
Houston’s “Surgeon Scorecard” Results Aren’t Pretty
Here’s something that you probably didn’t know and will soon wish you didn’t: 16 Houston hospitals saw surgeons perform harmful knee surgeries between 2009 and 2013. The same goes for hip replacements (six hospitals), lumbar spinal fusion (six again), and neck spinal fusion (three). While we’ve all heard that there are…
Chef Chat, Part 1: Jonathan Levine of Jonathan’s The Rub
Jonathan’s The Rub is in the sleepy Hedwig Village area just off I-10 West but at lunchtime on a Monday, it’s downright bustling. After being part of the community for almost a decade, it’s become a neighborhood favorite. It’s chef and owner, Jonathan Levine, has been a Houstonian for 15…
Danieal Manning Announces His Retirement From NFL
It was late July in 2011, and the NFL’s labor standoff had just ended a few days earlier. Now, with the 2011 preseason days away, it was up to Texans general manager Rick Smith and head coach Gary Kubiak to find new defensive coordinator Wade Phillips some pieces to help…
What Spotify’s “Musical Map” Says About Texas
Spotify has become arguably the world’s top music-streaming service in a relatively short amount of time, but it also feels more and more like a number-crunching game. In its never-ending quest to do something with the terrabytes of data we users feed it on a daily basis (not to mention…
Wreckless Eric’s Recovery From Dysfunctional Success
Eric Goulden a.k.a. Wreckless Eric, whose song “(I’d Go the) Whole Wide World” is one of the most recognizable tunes from the New Wave era and listed in Mojo magazine’s Top 100 punk songs, was part of the historic Stiff Records 1977 package tour that included Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Ian…
Oil Billionaire Sid Bass Bails Out Blue Bell
If you’ve been living under a rock, perhaps you missed that Blue Bell has been in some trouble for the past few months. Well, now they’ve received backing from Fort Worth oil billionaire Sid Bass in a move that Blue Bell is characterizing as a show of faith in their…
Why We Can’t Stop Staring at the Pluto Photo
NASA’s New Horizon probe has already flown by Pluto but we won’t see the real Cecil B. DeMille-style closeups until those photos finish transmitting tonight. But based on the photo that NASA just put out showing Pluto as the probe began to draw closer to the dwarf planet, the last…
The Taming of Amy Schumer: Trainwreck Has Laughs, but at What Cost?
The problem with clamoring for more woman-led comedies is that actual comedy may be the thing that ends up being left by the wayside. Tina Fey, among others, has railed against the boneheaded dictum that women can’t be funny. But in the current climate of watchfulness — one in which…
Ant-Man Favors Story Over Set Pieces; The Result Is Half-Awesome
We may not need another hero, but true believers don’t need to shrink-ray their expectations. Ant-Man is the first Marvel film — and the first of this summer’s pixels-go-kablooey time-wasters — to get better as it goes. The filmmakers save their biggest, wiggiest ideas for the climaxes, where they wittily…
Stellar Doc Amy Summons Up All That Amy Winehouse Was.
To hear Winehouse sing numbers like “Back to Black” and “Love Is a Losing Game” in Asif Kapadia’s sensitive and extraordinary documentary Amy is to open yourself to an unsettling rush of grief and joy. Kapadia has conducted interviews with key people in Winehouse’s life — including her ex-husband, Blake…
Ian McKellen Is Mr. Holmes, and That’s Enough
Above all else, a movie built around a star promises presence, and in Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes that promise is dual: Here’s 100 or so minutes with the great Ian McKellen, for once not casting spells, controlling magnetism, or classing up script pages of expositional gobbledygook. It’s not his job,…
The Wolfpack: Surprising Doc Asks What It’s Like to Be Raised by ’90s DVDS
Crystal Moselle’s documentary The Wolfpack is a Manhattan fable about fear. Two decades ago, a Hare Krishna, conspiracy theorist and self-described god named Oscar Angulo moved from Peru to a public housing tenement on the Lower East Side with his American bride, Susanne, whom he’d met and wooed on the…
