Letters
Cinema House Censorship I register my opinion about the regretful decision that AMC Houston will no longer provide a valuable service. I refer to the Houston Press newspaper, which I looked forward to picking up each week at one of three AMC movie theaters I regularly attend (Studio 30, Westchase…
The Love Barge
The theme from The Love Boat won’t be playing as you board the ship; any background “music” will be the shouts of laborers loading the last of the cargo. The merchant vessel Americana, which departs from the Port of Houston to tour the anchorages of Central and South America, offers…
Night & Day
thursday may 11 Why is D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back considered a modern classic? The 1967 film is one of the standard-bearers of ’60s cinema verite, but it’s more likely to make you sick than to make you think; watching it — especially on a big screen — is like…
Naked Brunch
If you’re an early riser, you may have heard David Sedaris on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. But Naked, the memoir (and memoir parody) by the hilarious, openly gay writer, cuts closer to the bone than his radio readings. From the essay “Ashes”: “My mother called to say she had…
Sports Injera
The iconography is eclectic at The Queen of Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant. On a wall behind the television is a picture of Emperor Haile Selassie, Elect of God, King of the Kings of Ethiopia. But the emperor has competition. Not far from his left shoulder, there’s another picture (a poster, actually),…
Clubland
On any other night, it’s the Waxx Museum. Fridays, though, it becomes The Foundation, “a weekly showcase of hip-hop culture” — or so goes the hype. And more often than not, it lives up to its billing, with DJs, dancers, spray paint and street poetry combining for a compelling urban…
Busy Body
As a kid, she trained hard in tap-dancing and ballet. At 16, she graduated from high school more than a year early. She writes and produces most of her songs, and she’s already been hit on by Warren Beatty. Nubile, petite and impossibly lean, Mya is an earthy, Wheat Thin…
Mother Load
Writers have known for eons what it took psychologists years to figure out: that most of life’s serious dramas start with dear old Mom. (Oedipus predates Freud by — what — a couple of millennia?) But the subject remains fresh on the stage, as shown by Nicky Silver’s Fit to…
Graduation Day
In local underground circles, Junior Varsity is as well known for its stage antics as for its music. The band incorporates cheerleader uniforms, kazoos, even a dancing mascot named Bippy the Beaver. Their sound leans toward the quirky, the all-too-brief and the downright sloppy, irreverent fragments of retro garage-rock blather…
Art Is Dead. Let’s Have a Drink.
A frequent visitor to Texas, Dave Hickey is one of those art critics whose essays achieve the elusive: They make art fun for the non-artist. He writes about art and cars, art and guitars, art and reruns of Perry Mason. He is a studied art-world renegade, a critic on behalf…
Static
Raves and wave-offs… Producer, baby sitter and budding indie-rock entrepreneur Jamie Sralla is cultivating quite the buzzing rec-room cottage industry in Wayward Sound. The tiny label’s accomplishments thus far include a local compilation CD (Full Frequency Package) and a music video/documentary of sorts (Houmidity). Then there are the countless demos…
Crime Fiction Pays
Few contemporary authors are as closely associated with their literary alter egos as James Lee Burke is with his creation, Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux. Both hover around age 60, are recovering alcoholics and family men and live in atmospheric New Iberia, Louisiana. But Burke, a native Houstonian who graduated from…
Rotation
Public Enemy He Got Game Def Jam Gangstarr Moment of Truth Noo Trybe If there is any value to the ’80s revival, it’s that Public Enemy and Gangstarr have returned to revitalize the sense of substance in rap. Frankly, these two ghetto brigades from the era of big hair, Spandex…
Power Mower
For much of its first hour, Lawn Dogs staggers between success and failure. The film’s first images, for example, of a “Lawn Dog” (an unfortunate title, invoking Tarantino a little too needily) on the move are quite striking. We see a man mounted on a chariot-like mower, riding it across…
The Romance of the One-Night Stand
Rock and roll has a long tradition of alcohol-basted love songs, but few are laced with the daredevil optimism of Semisonic’s “Closing Time.” Normally, contemplating a long-term relationship after your tenth Tecate seems a bad idea. Dan Wilson, Semisonic’s primary singer/songwriter and lead guitarist, explains that such jolly good cheer…
Love Bane of Cobain
Nick Broomfield’s biggest asset is his ability to keep a straight face. The British documentary-maker’s several films about transgressive women — Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam; Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer; and the new Kurt and Courtney, which despite its title is thematically about Courtney Love — are…
Dish
Catching Up with the Corduas Our favorite heavyweight Houston restaurateurs have been busy lately: The current scorecard for Glenn and Michael Cordua includes four — count ’em, four — Churrascos and Americas locations in Houston, plus the Churrascos that opened last December in Chicago. You can’t miss the newest black-and-white-cowhide-spotted…
The A-List Buddhist
“Oh, hon-ee!” It is the morning of the “Ancient Wisdom for the 21st Century” seminar, and Gail Gross has just sighted another one of her very best friends in the whole world entering the posh conference room at the Houstonian. Squealing with excitement, she smothers the newcomer with a hug…
Hot Plate
Oh-oh! Wouldn’t you know it? Just when I thought I’d laid to rest the last of my obsessions, up crops a new one. This time it’s caramanolas ($6) — yuca turnovers filled with black beans, cotija cheese and Caribbean chorizo served in a rich cilantro sauce — and to find…
1998 Houston Press Music Awards Nominees
Aftershock Nomination: Best Metal/Hard Rock; Best Rap/Hip-Hop Sound: Metal, rap Time logged: Two years Etc.: After claiming victory last year in the Best Rap/Hip-Hop category, the Aftershock posse is back again, and this time they’re upping the ante with an additional nomination in the Best Metal/Hard Rock category. What they’ve…
Lovett? Or Leave It?
On one hand, it’s a story about property values, and “quality of life,” and trees, and historic preservation (sort of) and about how all of these things are good, if you can find a way to hold on to them. On another hand, it’s a story about property rights, and…
The Special Needs of Frank Gonzales Jr.
Frank Gonzales Jr. is someone that Governor George W. Bush would prefer that you didn’t know about. Because if members of the governor’s parole board had not approved of Gonzales’s release from prison last year — nine months before he’d normally have come up for parole — cabdriver Debra Jarrell…
1998 Houston Press Music Awards
Ballot-stuffers and shameless self-promoters take note. There’s a reason why every Press rack in Montrose is empty: It’s coming up on Sunday’s ninth annual Houston Press Music Awards Showcase, the festival equivalent of an official “Hug Your Local Musician” Day. (And, who knows? After a few beers, you may want…
The Insider
Future Political Wars President Bill Clinton meant to placate Hispanic leaders with his visit to an eastside community center here last week, but the visit’s main effect may have been to sharpen a developing 21st-century rivalry between two Houston politicos. Backers of state Senator Mario Gallegos claim that although he…