That’s Fowl
Somehow, this makes a lack of run support bearable. It’s not the edgiest sports coverage we can offer up, sure, but dangit, this is just cute. If you were at Minute Maid Park last night, you know that the Astros lost to the Cincinnati Reds. But the real winners were…
To Be Continued?
Five years after she gave her kiddos the most thorough bath of their lives, Andrea “I’m With Stupid” Yates has been found not guilty by reason of insanity. You know, as opposed to all those other lucid moms who kill their kids. Proving its total omnipotence, it was an episode…
How About a Trial After Dinner?
McLean’s the smartest gal in the room Editor’s note: How messed up is Enron? So messed up that this post corrupted our blog system for an hour. Just sayin’. Things are really coming to a made-for-TV ending (you know, where the scene freezes and there’s the whole “where are they…
“It Weren’t Me, It Were the Zoloft”
Blame it on the rain. Ah, good ole’ technical difficulties. We apologize for the delay this morning in the posting. Now that the deluge has stopped, we promise we’ll get back on track. In the meantime, we’ve had fun watching KHOU’s in-the-slammer interview with the guy who led police on…
The good people at
The good people at Nicorette want to help you make nicotine your bitch. And they’ve finally gotten around to making a flavor of gum that doesn’t taste like a burnt rubber tire congealed to the underside of a bloated corpse. That’s right; Nicorette has embarked on a nearly 80-city tour…
Good Jolb
Kolb could be the best thing from UH since, um… Just about every college-football analyst with brain cells is declaring Notre Dame QB Brady Quinn as the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy. If he gets injured, then it’s Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson. If AP goes down again — or somehow fails…
We Deserve a Break Today
Getty Images Burger building seems like a simple operation… So a group of us are in the car the other night and one guy asks if we can’t go get a burger. He really wants one because he can’t get them at home anymore because his mom is scared about…
Please Check Your Seatbacks — and Pilot
Modern Drunkard Magazine What harm’s a little rum between IAH and DFW ? Our pals at KHOU broke another good one yesterday. You may have heard that a Continental Airlines pilot was pulled from duty Sunday after testing positive for alcohol. Seems a Continental employee smelled the vapors emanating from…
Is God on 3-1-1?
“Don’t sweat folks, I’ve called FEMA!” Well, the nerve… A poll released by Texas Southern University today shows that African-American Houstonians would call upon The Lord Almighty before city or state government during a major disaster. The report found that 83 percent of African Americans surveyed said the city is…
So Much for Waterfront Views
“Why yes, we have redecorated the kitchen.” A story in your daily information source raises a significant question (cue raspy TV news voice-over guy): “Are the levees in Fort Bend County in trouble?” Dun-dun-duuuuunnnn… Well, no one really knows, it seems. The story makes note that several major master-planned communities…
Not My Money-Saving Coupons!
“Go go Gadget getaway!” Nothing stops the machinery of the Houston Press editorial offices like a police chase. And whoo-boy, did KHOU have one for us today. The jackass moron Duke of Hazzard suspect, driving a white Chevy pickup, led police on a 90-minute chase that finally ended with the…
Boys Will Be Boys
Bobby says things got manic! at the disco. Remember when “free love” gave a bunch of naked, hairy hippies an excuse to shag in the park? What about during the disco days of Studio 54, where sex was as common of a sight as lines of blow, big collars, and…
Upward Mobility, My Ass
Screw mass transit — this is the way to commute. Sure, citizens along Richmond Avenue may be bitching about light rail, but music editor John Nova Lomax has a real gripe against Houston mass transportation… Transportation, or “mobility” as people who like buzz-words seem to always call it, is a…
Zestfully Lame
“Houston? Let’s name the town Adventure!” H-town and the surrounding areas have been making all kindsa’ lists lately, what with Sugar Land being named a Great American Town, and Houston surprisingly nabbing the title of the third skinniest city in the country. But that’s all fuzzy math as far as…
What a Burger!
Robb Walsh Eat this, live forever. In 1900, the average American’s life expectancy was 49.2 years. Americans got lots of exercise through manual labor. They ate organic fruit and vegetables because synthetic fertilizers and pesticides hadn’t been invented yet. Unhealthy fast foods like hamburgers hadn’t been invented yet either. By…
What a Burger!
Robb Walsh Eat this, live forever. In 1900, the average American’s life expectancy was 49.2 years. Americans got lots of exercise through manual labor. They ate organic fruit and vegetables because synthetic fertilizers and pesticides hadn’t been invented yet. Unhealthy fast foods like hamburgers hadn’t been invented yet either. By…
Oh, Slap!
Fisticuffs? Let’s hope they turn around and make up. First Press prom king Ray Hafner spotted it on KPRC. Then it started buzzing around the blogosphere: President Bush slapped Al Green. Whoa — could Dubya have decked the Reverend during a soulful rendition of “Let’s Stay Together,” perhaps? Da-yam! Worse…
You Go, Rockstar
Danny Moloshok/Blue Pixel Dilana’s into hall sex. Okay, I’ll admit it: I’ve been watching Rockstar: Supernova on CBS each week (well, not real time, anyway. Thanks, TiVo!). It’s not to watch the “tension” between the wannabe lead singer contestants. It’s not to watch Tommy Lee air-drum during said contestants’ performances…
Ringing Bell
Chris Bell ain’t lookin’ for trouble. We recently chatted with Independent gubernatorial candidate/big-black-hat-wearin’ Kinky Friedman about his environmental tour, which featured a Houston stop. Well, Democratic candidate/longtime politico Chris Bell has also been on the road this week for an environmental tour (it’s all the rage with candidates) as part…
Turkish Delight
Julia Walsh It’s tastier than it looks… And now we present “What’s in Robb’s Refrigerator?”, where we ask food critic Robb Walsh what’s growing in his Sub-Zero: Looks like some leftover alinazik from Instanbul Grill on Morningside. Alinazik means eggplant puree. This one is mixed up with yogurt and ground…
Turkish Delight
Julia Walsh It’s tastier than it looks… And now we present “What’s in Robb’s Refrigerator?”, where we ask food critic Robb Walsh what’s growing in his Sub-Zero: Looks like some leftover alinazik from Instanbul Grill on Morningside. Alinazik means eggplant puree. This one is mixed up with yogurt and ground…
Roger That
MLB.com 343 and counting… It’s safe to say that last night’s game between the Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs was one for the ages. For baseball fans, watching two 300-game winners go head to head — our Roger Clemens versus Cubs slinger Greg Maddux — is like watching Muhammad…
RIP, Syd. And RIP, ‘Cid.
Syd Barrett, perhaps the world’s most famous acid casualty, has died, over 30 years after he withdrew utterly from the world. And as tempting as it would be to say that his influence was still being felt far and wide, it’s just not true. Popular and even most underground music…
Unreal Estate
In the latest extravaganza from executive producers Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, millions of dollars and long hours in the digital animation studios have produced…a photorealistic, computer-animated, generic American suburb! Location costs must be getting pretty damn expensive nowadays. As Monster House begins, we follow a leaf slowly descending on…
Rhymin’ Simon
Like Mount McKinley and Yellowstone National Park, Paul Simon is a national treasure. Yes, it may seem strange to compare a diminutive singer-songwriter to a 20,000-foot mountain and a geyser-filled wildlife preserve, but we think that, just as the two enrich our country’s natural splendor, classics such as “Mrs. Robinson,”…
Drummer Love
Most of us remember marching bands as pains in the ass that prolonged high school football games, delaying our post-game plans of pounding cheap beer in someone’s basement. But you won’t be eyeing your watch when the Texas Drum Corps comes to town today. The 135-member Drum Corps’s The ExSIGHTment…
GWAR Heroes Electro Grrl
Dave Brockie, a good-humored ex-art student from Virginia, is probably more comfortable with a mask on than not. After all, he’s best known as Oderus Urungus, a horned alien who’s been swinging both a sword and an eye-stalked penis across stages for 20 years with his equally monstrous cohorts in…
Private Perfection
No other play so perfectly embodies the spirit of Art Deco than Private Lives, Nool Coward’s brittle, comedic battle of the sexes, which is now playing in a well-nigh perfect production at Main Street Theater. Simple but elegant, the plot’s construction has Deco’s geometric balance, converging lines and sensuous curves…
Gathering Place
Artist Kiki Smith has had her hands in just about everything. Although she favors sculpting the human body in papier-mâché because she likes “that quality of fragility,” she has worked in bronze and concrete — just to dismiss critics who’d call her work “weak and girlie.” She’s also respected for…
Like No One Else
Sean O’Neal may go by the moniker Someone Else, but he has a résumé like no one else. The DJ has performed in some of the world’s most renowned house and electronica hot spots, including Berlin’s Tresor Club; he’s appeared on Richie Hawtin’s landmark mix DVD Transitions; he co-founded the…
Cross-Dressing Confessional
In the soft glow of a parking garage, I deftly maneuver around the passenger seat. Off come the pants and on go the fishnets. I put on my just-purchased garter belt, and Mary shows me how to attach it. (“Oh! I’ve seen my grandma do this.”) With cars all around,…
Capsule Reviews
Incorruptible The Company OnStage, out at old Westbury Square, is true old-fashioned community theater. There’s a casual ease to the place, and all the volunteers seem to have a fine time serving coffee and directing folks to their seats or to the bathroom. Even the set for the current show,…
Gentle Rain
Formed during the mid-’90s “Midwestern Renaissance” that brought us the Promise Ring and Joan of Arc, Wisconsin natives Rainer Maria wowed the heartland, then moved to New York City in 2000, where they earned their share of street cred. But the Big Apple didn’t change the trio’s gentle tone. If…
King Crimson’s Heir
Genesis, Yes and King Crimson are perhaps the best-known progressive rock bands of the 20th century, but who is still kicking out the tech-jams in the 21st century? The U.K. has Porcupine Tree, while here in the U.S., we’ve got Portland, Oregon-based Danava. Unlike their British contemporaries, Danava doesn’t delve…
Dr. John
Longtime New Orleans blues and jazz “voodoo” musician Dr. John blows the dust off 12 Johnny Mercer classics on this funky collection. Mercer recorded dozens of hits as a singer and wrote more than a thousand songs with collaborators such as Hoagy Carmichael and Henry Mancini. “Blues in the Night”…
Capsule Reviews
“Bringing Shadows to Light: Contemporary Argentine Photography” Addressing subjects as diverse as war, the tango and the country’s current economic crisis, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents a good small survey of contemporary Argentine photography. There are pictures of a man’s crude drawings recording the torture he witnessed during…
Get Screwed
The top players of the Houston hip-hop game, including Bun B, Mike Jones and Slim Thug, have more than just their hometown and genre of music in common: They’ve all been screwed and chopped — in other words, mixed by the late, great DJ Screw, whose style was marked by…
Limey Sleuths
For many people, Victorian England evokes images of delicate ladies sitting on couches and sipping tea. But research librarian, Victorian scholar and novelist Will Thomas knows it was also a dangerous time. “The Victorian era was sort of the start of our modern world,” Thomas explains. “The people then were…
Mike Therieau
The most exciting moments of Mike Therieau’s debut collection come when the Oakland-based singer — a vet of The Loved Ones and Dave Gleason’s Wasted Days — channels the ghosts of Muscle Shoals and goes for the throat. On the opener, a Saturday-night number called “Wear You Off My Mind,”…
Why Do Mexicans Like Chevys?
Dear Mexican, Why do Mexicans traditionally like Chevys? Did Chevy once target the Mexican consumer base for some reason and it worked? Pocho in a Pontiac Dear Pocho, An urban legend suggests that Mexicans don’t like Chevys (pronounced with a harsh “ch” as in “chicken” and “chupacabra,” gracias) because the…
Combat Rock
In the same vein as Tenacious D and Spinal Tap, Fortress of Attitude will make you laugh as hard as they make you mosh. The Pittsburgh foursome dons paramilitary apparel at its shows, but it’s just a façade, says drummer Gregg “Dr. Genius” Zehentner. “If anyone tried to start a…
What a Duck
The “golden duck” ($15.95) at the Golden Room (1209 Montrose, 713-524-9614) is a thing of beauty. As with many Thai dishes, the presentation is as important as the taste. A whole, lightly battered breast, which has a crispy exterior and a tender interior, sits in a dark brown sauce that’s…
7L and Esoteric
Wallflowers, beware: We’re approaching a point in which leaning back will no longer be a suitable response to a banger. A dance-music revolution is taking hold of R&B (electro abounds!) and even hip-hop (snap music ain’t snap music without the snapping). And it’s no surprise the dance-rap fusion is being…
Way Out of Sync
Edison Force (Sony) Gritty cop stuff must write itself — just make sure everyone’s tough, corrupt, and talking like they stole Mickey Spillane’s thesaurus. Then cast Justin Timberlake. Screech! Employing the talented (at music) popster as a crusading journalist isn’t this lame flick’s worst flaw — merely the one you’ll…
Scored by a Stranger
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Film/Music Swap is based around a simple idea. Area filmmakers submit a movie with no music and composers submit music with no movie, and then each entrant is given back someone else’s work to “complete.” This is the third year that filmmaker Michelle Hampton…
Slammer
Arriving at 702 Restaurant and Patio Bar (702 W. Dallas, 713-654-8040) on a Sunday night, we’re greeted by a sexy ball of Asian adorableness named Cathy. She lets us know several things right off the bat, including: The movie Dodgeball is “freaking hilarious,” waffle fries are “badass,” 50 cents is…
John Evans Band
It was understood but unspoken. We knew from the way he played, the clothes and the attitude that John Evans was too smart and hip to be part of the group of Texas music yahoos he was identified with a few years back when he was winning all those Houston…
Cyber Shula
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PS2, Xbox, PC
Price: $39.99
ESRB Rating: E (for Everyone)
Score: 7 (out of 10)
Big Scope
While there were plenty of new technologies — eight-tracks, Betamax, the Gremlin — that failed to outlast the ’70s, CinemaScope was perhaps the decade’s most tragic casualty. CinemaScope used special lenses to compress images during filming and spread them out fuller, wider and with greater detail during projection. It died…
First-Degree Fraud
Do you want a college degree but don’t have time for all that pesky “studying” for “exams”? Do you dream of having a doctorate in something you know absolutely nothing about? Do you have $249? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you may be a candidate for…
Circa Survive, with YouInSeries, The Receiving End of Sirens, and Days Away
Anthony Green was California dreamin’ back in 2003, when he left his hometown of Philadelphia for the golden sands of Newport Beach and formed Saosin. But a year later, Green exited stage east, back to Philly, where he hooked up with former This Day Forward guitarist Colin Frangicetto to start…
Our top DVD picks for the week of July 18
The Best of She-Ra Princess of Power (Brentwood) Carnivale: The Complete Second Season (HBO) The Cavern (Sony) Clean (Palm) Don’t Move (Wellspring) An Early Frost (Wolfe) Flash Gordon: The Complete Series (Brentwood) The Incredible Hulk: The Complete First Season (Universal) Intimate Stories (New Yorker) Jack of All Trades: The Complete…
Man of 10,000 Voices
His name will forever be followed by a clarifying explanation — as in, the guy who did the funny voices in the Police Academy movies — but Michael Winslow, with his “10,000 vocal effects,” has been playing stand-up gigs since his Officer Larvell Jones was taken off the beat with…
The Black Heart Procession, with The Castanets and Devics
The San Diegobased band The Black Heart Procession began as a side project of Three Mile Pilot guitarist/vocalist Pall Jenkins and pianist Tobias Nathaniel back in 1998, but after the band signed to the Touch and Go label for their second, appropriately titled album, 2, their underground popularity surged and…
Online Confessions
Parents and the media can’t seem to say it enough: Kids, be careful what you post on MySpace. Especially if you’re an alleged murderer. Sugar Land residents Matt McCombs and his next-door neighbor Sean Brown, both 18, were arrested July 12 as they tried to cross the Canadian border. They’re…
Black Out
The Alley Theatre’s long-running Summer Chills series concludes for the season with Black Comedy, Peter Shaffer’s slapstick farce in which the roles of light and dark are reversed. When the stage is lit and visible to the audience, to the characters, the scene is actually darkened because of an electrical…
Garrison Starr
Garrison Starr’s smoldering ballads and heavily textured rockers have garnered her lots of critical praise and helped build a dedicated following in her adopted home town of Los Angeles. She’s got the looks, the licks and the voice to go for MTV stardom but has chosen a different route for…
Letters to the Editor
On the Records Deferred dilemma: Your story [“Bad Checks,” by Keith Plocek, July 6] did touch on a big problem with the DPS database, but there is a bigger problem out there. There are so many corrupt lawyers that are allowed to lie to their clients about deferred adjudication and…
Manned Vehicular Slaughter
Who killed the electric car? We don’t know, but given what we’re paying for gas, we’d like his head. First-time director Chris Paine tries to find the right person to mob with the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? The film explores the short life and quick death of General…
Matchbook Romance
For those of you who find the paint-by-numbers approach employed by far too many emo bands to be exceedingly dull, here’s some good news: An increasing number of them find it boring, too. Matchbook Romance is a case in point. A quartet from the rock hotbed of Poughkeepsie, New York,…
Dark Water
And farther west on the upper reaches of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars. “And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.” — Joseph Conrad The roiling…
Funk It Up
Give or take a letter, Funk tha Heat! is a phrase we’ve been repeating for weeks! It’s also the name of a festival at Helios that’s set out to make summer in Houston a little more tolerable. It’s an all-day outdoor event featuring 12 — count ’em, 12 — local…
The Church
The Church lost many fans in the 1990s when it began to favor meandering grooves that seduced via atmosphere rather than hooks. But while the absence of accessible pop gems meant that the prolific Australian quartet disappeared from the airwaves, its ability to bend melodies into heart-fluttering beauty never wavered…
Fish on its Laurels
Wade Watkins’s shrimp bisque is thick and pumpkin-colored. It tastes like cream of shrimp — which I suppose it is. I ate a cup of the comforting seafood soup at Gaido’s in Galveston while a vicious thunderstorm raged and waves pounded the seawall. It was the first time I had…
Doggone Fun
The annual Reliant World Series of Dog Shows is the place to go for purebred, expertly trained canines fetching, running and jumping. Come see why these animals are better-nourished, more frequently pampered and given better health care than the average American worker. The event includes training seminars, canine-themed art and…
Marc Anthony, Marco Antonio Solis and Laura Pausini
He’s baaaaaack! Puerto Rican salsero Marc Anthony (also known as the current Mr. J. Lo) is on the concert circuit yet again. He was on the road last summer with crooner Alejandro Fernandez and fellow islander Chayanne. Now he’s joined up with Mexican singer-songwriter Marco Antonio Solis (of Los Bukis…
2 Sweet 2 Tolerate
Completely aside from our opinion of their music, country stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw make us want to puke. Married for ten years — an eternity in show business — they’re an affluent, clean-cut, American Eagle Outfitter–type couple who sing lovey-dovey songs to one other on their multi-platinum albums…
Calculated Acts
After the announcement that a high school student with a calculator will be replacing him after 25 years at his job, Mr. Zero does what any reasonable person would: He murders his boss. Sounds awesome, right? Don’t cheer yet. Slaying “The Man” is the only brave thing Zero, whose job…
The Jonbenet
Not just an unsolved murder mystery anymore, Jonbenet is now also a popular Houston-based band. Trying to piss off the family or next-door neighbors? Blare some of these double bass beats and high-pitched screams from the bedroom and lock the door. With their wailing lyrics, toe-tapping drum cadences and slick…
World Cup Runneth Over
Was that last-second red card for France the first sign? Maybe it was Italy’s jubilant round of penalty kicks? Whatever caused it, your racing heart is evidence you’ve come down with World Cup fever. Though that fast and furious World Series of soccer is over, the Houston Dynamo, led by…
Unsuper Heroes
If you’re sick of the lame comedies and regurgitated superhero franchises that make up the summer movie season, duck into the Aurora Picture Show for the Dusk ‘Til Dawn Film Fest. The event features independent films from across the globe — and plenty of them. Today, 15 films, ranging from…
Image of the Week
Sporting the latest in Uncle Sam fashion from Build-A-Bear, Quincy sips from Billy Don Ivey’s iced Diet Coke. If only that bitch who dumped him back in the jungle could see him now. Click here to enlarge…
Go-Nowhere Men
Two weeks ago a colleague insisted that Superman Returns isn’t the remake of the 1978 original, as I wrote, but a reinterpretation — its melancholy flip side. Where the Christopher Reeve model was pop art and a cool breeze, the Brandon Routh version is heavy and solemn, weighed down by…
Road Less Traveled
Blues Traveler has gone from cult band to one-hit wonder (“Runaround” conquered radios during the summer of 1995) to bunch of has-beens to small news item because their lead singer is no longer fat. Oh well, perhaps it’s best not to label Blues Traveler. Throughout the band’s bouts of fame…
That Show Is Big
What would a snapshot of Houston’s “creative energy” look like? This exhilarating question drives The Big Show, an annual event at the Lawndale Art Center. “Basically any artist within 100 miles of Houston can submit recent artwork for consideration in the show, without regard to artist ‘status,'” explains Lawndale executive…
Life in a Hurricane
Take it from a local (okay, a transplant): The Morning 40 Federation’s scraggly rock tunes represent the true feeling of living in new-millennium New Orleans better than most of the city’s more famous musical acts. Essentially a funky, six-piece grunge band with a horn section and a “getting wasted in…
All Wet
It would be a mighty sweet thing to see M. Night Shyamalan as the great redemptive storyteller he clearly thinks he is — or as he portrays himself in those American Express commercials. Genuine yarn-spinning, even as a doomed ambition, is virtually extinct in American movies; what had been the…
Biff Upper Lip
Fans often “mistake” comedian Tom Wilson for Biff, the bullying villain from the Back to the Future trilogy. “Yes, it’s me, buttheads,” Wilson riffs in his latest comedy album, Tom Wilson Is Funny. But that’s the closest Wilson comes to profanity. Wilson, who recently recorded the contemporary Christian music album…
Disorder in the Court
You’re at a loss in love if you’re a lass in love in the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Houston’s double-billed performances of Trial by Jury and HMS Pinafore. In courtroom operetta Trial by Jury, a jilted bride seeks restitution from her former suitor. She pleads her case to an…