All the Way to the Bank
The rumor making the rounds is that celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten gets a million dollars to show up five days a year at Bank by Jean-Georges, a restaurant in a former bank lobby at the Hotel Icon on Main Street. I track down J-G, as his employees call him, and…
No PAL of Mine
Charles Lutz, board president of the Police Activities League, is getting ready to shut things down. The 14 vans that pick up kids, the $100,000 service center, the meals, everything used to keep kids from joining gangs, is headed to the mothballs. Despite a last-minute campaign to save it, PAL…
Screaming Fidelities
Dear Chris Carrabba: Hi, this is Annie. Um, I feel kind of weird writing this letter to you. I interviewed you a few weeks ago, and I don’t normally do this kind of thing — violating the whole journalist-subject, objective-distance thing, you know. However, I couldn’t help but scribble some…
Letters
It’s a Gas Quintana’s birds: You covered the whole LNG problem comprehensively, especially all the political connections [“Welcome to Fire Island,” by Sarah Fenske, May 27]. What about the mitigation project for the nearby bird sanctuary? Burton Smart Lafayette, Louisiana Relative risks: You should have contacted recognized LNG experts Quest…
Horse Sense
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Sudden Movement
Artistic movements can be recognized rather than consciously forged. For instance, a few decades back when Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein first got wind of each other, both were shocked to learn that the other had almost simultaneously “invented” what would soon become ubiquitous as pop art. Fast-forward to early…
Monster Mash-up
The last year has been a good one for the mash-up, that DIY form of culture-mulching in which anyone with an Internet connection can download two songs plus the software to splat them together and come up with a trendy dance-floor hit in a matter of minutes. In addition to…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, June 10 The accordion is definitely one of those love-it/hate-it instruments. Okay, most of us just hate it. But nothing beats the camp appeal of those keys — except for maybe the kazoo. And nobody in these here parts can squeeze the box quite like the Accordion Kings &…
Pop Quiz
Okay, class, put away your books and other materials, and get out a sheet of paper and a pen. It’s time for a Houston music pop quiz. Reward yourselves three points for each correct answer, including each part of the matching question, and since this is a pretty hard little…
Short Jokes
“When I found the dance machine, I found myself,” says Tom, the protagonist in the film Dance Machine. The machine in question is one of those Japanese video games where wannabe superstars bust move after move in order to get points. And Tom is serious about training for an upcoming…
The Beta Band
When asked by performers how to succeed in the music business, reviewers (who invariably know nothing about how to succeed in the music business) frequently offer this cavalier response: “Make good music.” If it were that simple, the Beta Band, out of Edinburgh, Scotland, would be huge. Steve Mason, John…
Grab Some Grub
SUN 6/13 Foooooood fiiiight! It’s a battle cry like no other, a call to arms for tomato chucking and under-the-table ducking. It’s a lunchroom dream, a chance to douse your friends in mayo and cream. It’s a beautiful, mush-ridden mess. It’s a guaranteed trip to detention. It’s a freakin’ food…
Los Lobos
East L.A.’s greatest-ever band has so far spent the 21st century backing away from the formal and textural experimentation that marked the work the group did in the 1990s. In 2002, Good Morning Aztlán winningly showcased the band’s roots — a hard, Latin-keyed rock and soul with plenty of swing…
Fab Fest
SAT 6/12 Out of all the über-stylish cast members on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Jai Rodriguez seems to have the most thrown-together range of skills. The other guys are seasoned, polished professionals. But 24-year-old Rodriguez earns his keep by busting out impromptu dance moves, quirky date ideas and…
Miss Kittin
Electroclash was just a 15-minute cocaine high on the pop timeline, so Miss Kittin is deservedly cranky on her solo debut-cum-comedown, I Com. She kicks off a liturgy of her sub-A-list duties (adding people to the guest lists, kissing cheeks) on the opening track, “Professional Distortion,” before reminding us that…
Dry-Aged Discrimination
Flames are shooting out of the high-tech stainless-steel broiler at The Capital Grille on Westheimer. And thanks to the open design of the restaurant’s kitchen, I get to watch the fire without leaving my comfortable chair at a corner table in the adjoining dining room. Like the original Capital Grille…
The Real Tuesday Weld
Men adopt different personae to try to get women to sleep with them, but none is as guileful as the “wounded genius” — the kind of guy whose illustrious talents have been crushed by love. Londoner Stephen Coates, a.k.a. the Real Tuesday Weld, is one such wounded genius on the…
Decadence Squared
At Piatto Ristorante (4925 West Alabama, 713-871-9722), the menu’s description of the “asparagus special” ($9.99) had me salivating before I could read it through. It read: “fresh asparagus, lightly breaded and fried, topped with lump crabmeat and a lemon-butter white wine sauce.” This gem of a dish is a standout…
The Whole Truth?
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Playbill
The Shins, the Glands, Rogue Wave For all the talk about the Darkness as the messiah of rock and roll, there is (and has been) an equally potent force at work right here in the States. Hailing from oft-overlooked Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Shins first began turning heads in 2001…
Gruel Intentions
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Kiickasssss!
Directed by . With Van Peebles, Rainn Wilson, Paul Rodriguez and Khleo Thomas.
Capsule Reviews
Boy Groove “You make my hips buck,” sings the gyrating boy band, voguing in front of the audience. Aaron Macri and Chris Craddock’s musical spoof Boy Groove is having its U.S. premiere at Theatre LaB Houston, and in it, fictional teeny-bopper sensation Boy Groove gets screwed just like it ought…
Fitting the Bill
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Going to Iceland
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Sweet Charity
On that day last September, Congressman Tom DeLay and his wife, Christine, showed they can still mount the perfect photo op. She wore blue; he (and her fingernails) wore red. And they both flashed the smiles of political veterans. The occasion was a big one. After a few years of…
Capsule Reviews
“Fade In: New Film and Video” This Contemporary Arts Museum exhibition, curated by Paola Morsiani, presents a group of works by eight international artists. American Luis Gispert’s installation, Foxy Xerox (2003), is a witty take on the appropriation of hip-hop culture by white America. On one wall, a blond girl…
Charity Begins at Home
Tom DeLay’s foster-home project in Richmond would be a philanthropic plus for any area. But critics say he is even more adept at charity of another sort: funneling federal funding back to his home base in Sugar Land. For congresspeople, a ready flow of government projects and subsidies for constituents…
Biking Dirty
Snowboarding, surfing and BMX racing seem to attract the same kinds of competitors: wild-eyed, carefree and occasionally broken. For a kid far from a black-diamond ski slope or saltwater swells, a single-geared bike with 20-inch wheels is the perfect instrument for channeling extreme-sports urges. Typically a sport for the young…
Love Hurts
About 20 hanging baskets filled with plants line the roof of Aurelia “Lolly” Rodriguez’s home. Another nine pots of blooming impatiens and spider monkeys sit on her grill. A red hibiscus blooms at the edge of the walkway. Up the path is a pink rose bush surrounded by banana leaves…
Three Chicks from dos chicas
From the group that brought you Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Sadomasochistic Xmas comes Envy the Cockroach, a pitch-black comedy about chicks in the pen. The new production from dos chicas theater commune takes its name from the liner notes of Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison album, which describe…
Going Batty
Lawrence Spence isn’t a warehouse loft redeveloper or even an entrepreneur pushing for another NoDo nightclub. But this schoolteacher shares some of the same dreams. He wants to add enough unique downtown housing to attract a few hundred thousand late-night, high-flying party animals. And in the process, he’d create the…