Executing the Truth in Ads
Excited and enthusiastic looks radiate on the faces of the white, middle-class family of four — mom and dad, brother and sis — as they crowd together on a couch opposite their television set with a bowl of popcorn. Because of the angle of the TV, the action on the…
Lucinda Williams
Flash-forward to 2003. Lucinda Williams is holding court in a New York hotel with a gaggle of Gotham critics. As the hours drag on, she grows listless. Each writer has been allotted 45 minutes to quiz her about the follow-up to Essence, her CD released in June 2001. The questions…
Welcome Home, You’re Busted!
The call to Christina Girard’s tony town house on South Briar Hollow behind the Remington Hotel came from 53-year-old Sanam Soudavar, a petite, dark-haired Iranian émigré. Soudavar told her close friend she would be flying into Bush Intercontinental Airport on a connecting flight from Paris the following weekend. Soudavar expected…
The Sperlings
While the inspiration behind this title is unclear (superhero? creature of the deep? eco-friendly crooner?), it’s not hard to spot the Sperlings’ grab bag of influences: ’60s power-pop and lite punk, with little crests of a new wave. This Houston quartet doles out 21 tracks, most delivered in three minutes…
Headhunting, HISD-Style
Executive recruiter Linus Wright stood before the Houston Independent School District board to explain his efforts on their behalf to ferret out candidates for the district superintendency. Only a handful of members of the media, interested citizens and HISD employees had gathered to watch, despite the fact that the special…
Playbill
Known for its dazzling musicianship, its intricate fusion of metal, punk and reggae, not to mention its acidic political commentary, Bad Brains formed in 1979 in Washington, D.C.’s Maryland suburbs. The band members had been playing as a jazz-fusion outfit called Mind Power until a friend lent them some punk…
We’re (Kinda) Sorry
We figured somewhere, somehow, some wiseacre would try to sneak it past a sleepy editor, what with the latest Bush twins brouhaha. We just never thought it would be the Houston Chronicle. But there it was, in a photo caption June 4 describing yet another White House T-ball game: “President…
Playbill
Dayton, Ohio’s Guided By Voices brings its traveling drunken circus back to town in support of its fantastic new CD, Isolation Drills (TVT). The album is much sharper than its predecessor, Do the Collapse, and there’s every reason to expect the songs to come even more alive when accompanied by…
Hope Sinks
For the next five days, Richard Lewis will seldom leave his North Dallas hotel room, hidden away at the far end of the top floor with a view of overpasses, office buildings and distant dark clouds. He will venture out only to visit a couple of radio and television stations,…
Playbill
Most folks know Radiohead will kick off its U.S. tour in The Woodlands this week. But after that, the genre-flipping maestros will take their show on the road to the rest of North America. Not so with Gay Dad, Arnold and the Warm Jets. These three lesser-known, though worthy, Brit-pop…
Letters
Storage Containers Just junior dirtballs: After reading “Learning How to Survive (at) CEP” [by Wendy Grossman and Margaret Downing, May 31], I concluded that the CEP program is an unmitigated success. It does get the disruptive students out of school, and judging from the students’ complaints, they seemed to have…
See-Worthy
In a year inundated with massive movies, it’s a pleasant surprise to note that a truly spectacular adventure has arrived in the form of a Disney cartoon called Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Gushing aside, let us now consider the Atlanteans, the mythic race whom co-directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise…
The Vaginas Are Coming
Any girl who’s ever had a boy sit behind her in the seventh grade growling, “Your cunt is a big black hole. Everything gets lost in there, in your black hole cunt,” knows there’s something special about the vagina. The bit of anatomy plays a unique role in our culture:…
A Question of Truth
Chopper, the first feature from Australian video director Andrew Dominik, is a strong, effective but often stomach-churning portrait of notorious Aussie criminal Mark “Chopper” Read. It can be characterized as “sensational” — in both the positive and negative senses of the word. According to the filmmakers, Chopper Read is a…
Tall Order
To qualify for the Towering Texans of Houston, the second vice president or a delegated member of the prospect committee must verify that you are at least 21 years of age and stand six feet two inches in stocking feet if you’re a man and five feet ten inches if…
Peak Performance
Those expecting Himalaya to focus upon the beloved traveling carnival ride known for its liberal use of Def Leppard (“Do you wanna go faster?”) are in for a few surprises. For one, this sensuous, exotic film is more like an issue of National Geographic come to life, rich with cultural…
The Highs and Low Country
Diunna Greenleaf launches into a stirring rendition of “Amazing Grace” as we nibble on mini biscuits and corn bread squares. Judging by the crowd, it seems the gospel brunch at the new Fox Diner on Shepherd is extremely popular. We are seated at the farthest table from the stage, but…
Foote and Mouth Disease
Known for his quiet explorations of small-town Southern life, Horton Foote is one of America’s preeminent living playwrights. He won his first major award in 1962 when he took home an Oscar for his screenplay of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Twenty-one years later, he copped a second…
Run Out on a Rail
The recorded message was a little longer and more emotional than usual: “Hello. You have reached Baich’s Bar & Grille. With much regret and sadness, Baich’s Bar & Grille will be closed after lunch on Monday, June 4, due to disruption of our business as a result of Metro’s construction…
Blurring the Lines
For those of us with extreme myopia, the photographic work of Uta Barth strikes a familiar chord. “Blurry” is probably the most overused adjective when describing her images. Her photographs purposely avoid “subject” as she culls images from places ordinary and anonymous: Spartan interiors, unspectacular landscapes, banal buildings. With a…
The Thais That Bind
Dalat Vietnamese Bistro recently changed its name to Mekong River (3241 Southwest Freeway, 713-669-9375) and expanded its menu to include Thai food. (The Mekong separates Vietnam from Thailand.) We asked new partners Kevin Tran, who will help manage the restaurant, and his wife, chef Pirin Kunviboon, who will prepare the…
No Storybook Ending
Houston Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet loses something without Shakespeare’s words, Dracula without Bela Lugosi’s bite, Cinderella without the Grimm brothers’ morbid psychology. But Giselle is a story that was meant for ballet. Based on the legend of the Wilis — ghosts of young maidens who were jilted by men and…
Squeeze City
Hike to the top of Hippie Hill at Miller Outdoor Theatre and, once you’ve established a base camp by the funky sculpture and gotten over your flatlander-induced altitude sickness, survey the city from your lofty vantage point. To the north is the Fifth Ward, and its Frenchtown enclave, where many…
Stirred and Shaken
I pull up a stool at the handsome copper-topped bar at Grappino di Nino (2817 West Dallas, 713-522-5120) and proceed to tell bartender David Menneci a story about the cocktail I just ordered: the very Italian Negroni, based on the original recipe. Around 1920, I tell David, a Florentine bon…
Free-Range Bird
Come on a journey to the musical hinterlands. We begin at the vast tracts of mainstream suburban ranch homes and move past the downtown jazz neighborhoods with their mixture of high concepts and classifications. Head out to the edge of town where vernacular styles mix with bohemian high culture. Keep…
Mosquito Bite
Though the cool, contemporary decor of Mosquito Café (628 14th Street, Galveston, 409-763-1010) is completely nonthreatening, its competitors may think this eclectic restaurant is out for blood with one of its newest items. The simply named salmon club ($9.95) is actually quite complex, a trademark concoction that substitutes the standard…
Blind Faith
Melinda Watson is only in her mid-thirties, but she has already experienced one moment of absolute bliss. It came after the birth of her second child: Sixteen months after delivering her son, Luke, in 1993, Melinda cradled her newborn daughter, Rachel. She sensed a sort of completion. “There was a…
Thibeaux for the Soul
For years now, Michele Thibeaux has been workin’ it. Workin’ what, you ask? Well, she’s been workin’ her talent, which is singing. But she also has been workin’ herself — as a persistent entity on the local scene. Wherever there’s a funky gathering of people enjoying some laid-back music, chances…
Raw Roots
On Highway 521, about a mile past the San Bernard River, deep in the heart of the swampy coastal bottomlands of Brazoria County, lies a deserted old two-story house, whose slouching front steps and sagging roof seem to invite vandals like a double dare. Broken first-floor windows reveal a scene…
World Class?
Most of the great American cities have anthems. Everybody knows New York is the city that never sleeps and that, in his own snarky way, Randy Newman loves L.A. Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco, while Bob Wills (or more accurately, Tommy Duncan) kissed lips so sweet and…
Smear Campaign?
The news hit Galveston late last October like a rogue wave, and within a day it had surged up Interstate 45 to saturate the local television news in Houston as well: Delores “Mama” King, a grandmotherly black woman in her seventies, stood accused of abusing several of the 12 children…
Community Chest
Most club events boast names that suggest more than they deliver — Starlight, RhythmFresh and our favorite, Trippin’ the Love, which appears to promise both sex and drugs. But when it comes to truth in advertising, no moniker seems more dead-on accurate than Community’s. Just look at a recent Thursday…