Hair Today…
You’re coming off like you’re Van Damme / You’ve got Kenny G in your Trans Am / You’ve got names like Billy Ray / Now you sing “Hip Hop Hurray” / Put your Oakleys and your stone-wash on / Watching MTV and you mosh on / No. 1 on the…
Higher Ground
There’s magic in Northfork — both in the movie, by twin brothers Mark and Michael Polish, and in the Montana town soon to be drowned by the opening of the dam keeping the baptismal waters at bay. Northfork is a beguiling and bittersweet fantasy set in a netherworld where the…
If You Can’t Take the Heat…
SAT 8/2 Hot-food fanatics, pepper sauce swillers and other gastronomic masochists will assemble this weekend for a gathering of the chilehead cult. The Houston Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show premieres this year in Reliant Center. Its parent, the Albuquerque Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show, is in its 15th year and…
English Muffin
This summer has been unusually generous to theater-loving Houstonians. Jammed full of glimmering little gems — nothing serious, just trinkets — the season has been one of the most delightful in years. And the Alley Theatre’s reprisal of Larry Shue’s frothy if slightly bent comedy The Foreigner, about a handful…
Go, Team, Go!
SAT 8/2 If your favorite board game involves “Mr. Mustard in the kitchen with the wrench,” the game of Go might appear utterly simple to you. Round black and white stones on a grid. Capture the opposing stone by surrounding it with your own. Anyone can do that, right? But…
Peace Through Art
When the Art Car Museum presented the thought-provoking exhibition “Secret Wars” shortly after September 11, 2001, it had the FBI dropping by to search out supposedly un-American activities. Now The Station, a sister space to the Art Car Museum, may be angling for a visit from the Israeli Secret Service…
Fabu You
MON 8/4 Kim McGraw teaches middle school at The Kinkaid School. “I’ve got them right in that preteen block,” she says, “and they’re just starting to preen like crazy.” It’s not surprising, then, that when McGraw asked her female students about the perfect summer camp, they came up with Bend…
You, Spy
David Wolstencroft moved from London to Los Angeles in November, and not only so he could rise each morning for a game of tennis–though there is that, and that might have been good enough. He made the trip, which is thus far temporary but may well prove permanent, for the…
Up Close and Personal
SAT 8/2 Sean Paul may be dancehall’s brightest star right now, but if you’re looking for a night of pure Jamaican vibes, best get yourself over to Reception Hall to bump and sway to the island’s reigning duo, Tanto Metro and Devonte. In 1998 their classic single “Everybody Falls in…
Blessed and Bewildered
Ask Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal the ubiquitous informal question “How’re you doing?” Chances are he’ll give this straight-faced reply: “I’m blessed.” Those who wait for further explanation find that none is forthcoming. To Rosenthal — the D.A. who replaced the legendary Johnny Holmes through the avid political support…
Still Young
WED 8/6 Neil Young has always been rock’s most quixotic performer, following his own wildly wandering muse. He’s even been sued by his record company for making “uncharacteristic” releases. Sensitive acoustic ballads, hard rock, electronic feedback, country, blues, rockabilly — his never-boring (though sometimes frustrating) musical journey has embraced them…
Bow-Tie Blazer
Try the bow-tie tuna ($13.99), and be grateful that the water glasses are especially large. The dish has won King Biscuit Patio Cafe (1606 White Oak Drive, 713-861-2328) an award for the best entrée at the Great Taste of Houston. One taste and it’s easy to understand why. It is…
Food Fitness Center
There are plenty of dense, chewy Chinese brown mushrooms tossed with the penne pasta. And just as I requested, the tomato sauce is heavily spiked with fiery chile peppers. The dish is anchored by the salty flavor and meaty texture of long skinny strips of protein — something that tastes…
Exile in Whinerville
There are no second acts in American lives,” F. Scott Fitzgerald said, but that’s not really true. Most of us have second — and third and fourth and, if we’re really lucky, even fifth — acts, which have the capacity to haunt or horrify us. Singer Liz Phair is no…
Invisible Man
Kenna is a man with many dirty little secrets. His latest album, New Sacred Cow, is a labyrinth filled with enigmas. One such is the fact that the album was co-produced by Chad Hugo, one-half of the superstar production team the Neptunes. At first listen to this synth-fueled album of…
Watershed Election?
Like ancient tribes confronting their worst fears by climbing their island’s smoking volcano, a group of 75 Houstonians gathered earlier this month near the banks of Brays Bayou, a normally placid waterway that can turn into a raging beast. The crowd wasn’t there for some pagan ceremony, however. They came…
Korn Shuckers
We pause now for this breaking news. With more than a million copies of the Deftones’ White Pony now sold in the United States, and half as many copies already sold of the band’s complex new CD, Deftones, experts say the resulting economic spin-off to other segments of the retail…
Rockets My-Nority Tryouts
A couple of months ago Houston minority leaders cheered their apparent court victory over Les Alexander and the Houston Rockets. They had sued the basketball franchise owner to hold him to a campaign pledge that minority and women investors (MWDBEs) would get a 30 percent stake in lucrative food and…
Everything Old Is New Again
Singer-songwriter Steve Young, a fine soloist but perhaps more famous for writing Waylon Jennings’s “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean” and the Eagles’ “Seven Bridges Road,” once told me something profound about songwriting and popular music in general. “People aren’t looking for something completely different,” he said. “They want something like what…
Herding Cats in District 5
Texas Southern law professor James Douglas, the former TSU president, hosted an evening confab of African-American power brokers last month at his spacious home in the Macgregor Park area. The guests of honor: four avowed candidates vying for the City Council Position 5 seat being vacated by term-limited Carroll Robinson…
Greg Trooper
Since his 1980s days in Austin, Greg Trooper has been building a fan base around insightful, real-life lyrics and a regular-guy vocal style. His next-door-neighbor sincerity and hard-knocks knowledge make him one of those rare male singers who projects a strong sense of intimacy and sensitivity without diminishing his one-of-the-guys…
Quilt and Innocence
Robert Reyna used to drink warm beer seven days a week. He says he kept two cans of Budweiser in his pockets to heat them up and one in each hand. The 32-year-old started drinking when he was 12 and didn’t stop until his arrest last October. Police took Reyna…
David Gray
David Gray Welshman David Gray has a few high-powered friends to thank for his success in the States — namely the Dave Matthews Band. Gray’s career in the United States skyrocketed after Matthews released Gray’s breakthrough album, White Ladder, on his A.T.O. Records label, then took things further by unabashedly…
Letters
Homeless and Rootless Stay out of Baldwin: Thank you for the article on the city’s intention to relocate the homeless and the Reverend Morrison from Root Park to Elizabeth Baldwin Park [“Dead End,” by Craig Malisow, June 26]; this is in the heart of a residential area. This move will…
Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis
The piano may pale in rock and roll popularity next to the electric guitar, but these two pioneers certainly proved long ago that it was an ideal instrument with which to rip it up and go cat go. The question all these many years later is whether they’re still ready…
A Lil’ Car Show
It’s my car’s birthday so we blowin’ them candles / More speakers in the trunk than my ride can handle — Ludacris, “Act a Fool” The average joe goes to car shows to see all the things rappers rap about: rims, chrome, candy paint, speakers, wood grain, tight white leather…
M. Ward, with Rilo Kiley and Statistics
Portland’s M. Ward may not be a household name, but the edgy young finger-picking composer gathers support from an amazing number of highly credible figures in the alternative music world, from über-producer and conceptual mover-and-shaker Howie Gelb of Giant Sand to Deeana Varagona of Lambchop. Critics drooled over his 2001…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, July 31 It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to stare at a Roberto Matta painting after taking a hit of acid. The Chilean artist moved to Paris in the ’30s and hooked up with Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda, who introduced him to Salvador Dalí and André…
Strange Days
The last time a director known for dystopian sci-fi dreamscapes decided to bring his quirky sensibility to a more “real world” project, the outcome was Amélie, a movie so internationally acclaimed that it brought the name of auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet out of the cult convention circuit and into art houses…