Dining a la Disco
Talk about a misalliance! Sempers describes itself as a supper club/discotheque, and while I have nothing but praise for the club — the food is great and the decor splendid — the disco, on the other hand, is a bloody nuisance. I can think of few worse combinations — except,…
Women at Work
The monthlong Summer Dance Festival includes a number of showcases, plus workshops and master classes by the likes of former Martha Graham principal dancer Steve Rooks (see Classes & Workshops in Calendar). Houston’s all-woman Weave Dance Company opens the fest’s performance schedule with a program titled “Circle of Trees,” featuring…
Real Deal
These days, it’s passe for a rap act to refer to its sound and philosophy as “keepin’ it real.” From the moment that abominable phrase was conceived, it had already played itself out, making the whole concept of truth in hip-hop seem somehow untruthful. But not all ghetto-minded rappers follow…
Jailhouse Shock
In his late twenties and still struggling to find his voice, Tennessee Williams wrote Not About Nightingales, a violent, loud, over-the-top script full of 1930’s movie-land melodrama and James Cagney tough-guy phrases. It’s an imperfect play, full of hackneyed references, stereotypical characters and sometimes silly lines. But glimmering from within…
“Think” Not
There are 192 copyright registrations sitting in the Library of Congress for the song “I Think About You.” There’s a 1977 Patti LaBelle track titled “I Think About You,” another from 1989 by Michael Bolton and one more from 1979 by Sinatra knockoff Al Martino. But most of the copyrights…
Magic Sidekick Mystery Tour
One performer who’s going to have a helluva time sorting out his W-2 forms at the end of the year is Craig Shoemaker. In addition to a steady stream of standup jobs and movie roles, not to mention his duties as host of the addictive VH-1 game show My Generation,…
Clubland
The Fabulous Satellite Lounge loses both an adept club manager and a colorful figurehead when David Beebe tenders his resignation next month to pursue music full time. Currently, Beebe skippers the Hat Heads and the El Orbits, and continues to be a key member of both the Allen Oldies Band…
Tonka Turns Tomboy
It’s Christmas vacation, 1958. The movie my dad has chosen for a first-grade pal and me to see is the new Disney live-action adventure Tonka, starring Sal Mineo as a young Sioux named White Bull who traps and domesticates a clear-eyed, spirited wild horse named Tonka. Having seen The King…
Static
New blood… “What do you know about this guy? The whole thing sounds a little shady.” So went the gist of a recent phone conversation with a local music insider regarding a mysterious newcomer named Anthony Jackson. Judging from those suspicions and others, the local scene is a little on…
X-Filer Fun
The X-Files is a movie that answers questions … no, wait a minute: The X-Files is a movie that asks questions…. The X-Files is a movie that makes me wanna ask some questions, like … what the hell does “Fight the future” mean? I mean, I can understand “The truth…
Dirty But Honest
Not a lot of bands have gone broke underestimating the listening public, but plenty stay broke by aiming too high. In between, there’s a gray area where certain groups are able to maintain a mildly profitable fan base and reap critical acclaim. The Dirty Three wallows in the gray. The…
Bedroom Banter
With ’80s-style torn jeans, pimples strategically adorning his forehead and hair looking like it just came out of a coma, Christopher Scott Cherot, the charming but gaudy lead player of Hav Plenty, would seem a highly unlikely candidate to have a houseful of young ladies pining for him in one…
Rotation
Grant Lee Buffalo Jubilee Slash/Warner Bros. History’s embellished theatrics inform Grant Lee Phillips’s imaginary movie set. Whether singing about delinquent hippie trash and illicit sex on his band’s moody 1993 debut, Fuzzy, or picking apart decaying cultural and industrial institutions throughout 1995’s dour Copperopolis, the man behind the Buffalo seems…
Attacking the Taxman
If ever there was a best-case scenario for having the Internal Revenue Service take away your car for nonpayment of taxes, Houston attorney James Farmer probably experienced it April 22. Farmer’s long-running battle with the IRS came to a head that day, and for someone who sees himself eventually taking…
Hot Plate
Do quail quail? They do when I’m around, for the very good reason that I can’t get enough of them. The mesquite-grilled quail at Rancho Tejas are always a treat, but I’ve recently discovered another favorite: the taquito de codorniz — “roasted, bacon-wrapped boneless quail breast, stuffed with mushrooms and…
Psalms of Silence
Within the weathered walls of Trinity Episcopal Church, the rich opening swells of Bach’s “Fantasie in g minor” fill the sanctuary and announce the evening choral service. Ed Franklin, draped in colorful vestments, effortlessly works the keyboard of the restored Pilcher pipe organ despite the cast that encases much of…
The Insider
Flushing Out the Chambers Harris County District Attorney Johnny Holmes came back from last month’s biennial legal conference of jurists, prosecutors and lawyers at Del Lago resort smarting from a conversation with an unnamed defense attorney. At issue was Holmes’s controversial policy forbidding his prosecutors from engaging in private discussions…
Tell It to the Boss
If employees at the former Hermann Hospital want to keep their basic medical coverage and qualify for good-health bonus programs, they’re going to have to search their souls. Starting July 1, a whole new system of medical insurance coverage goes into place for the Hermann part of the new Memorial…
Letters
Religion Class Clash The A-list of leading Houston Buddhists was a venture into the inner workings of the privileged of Houston. Truth, in any form, is for all, not just the rich and powerful. The dissemination of that truth, when distorted by the creation of a golden circle of recipients,…
Night & Day
thursday june 18 Frank McCourt wrote ravishingly of his blighted upbringing in Limerick, Ireland, in the book Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir. Frank’s brother Malachy McCourt was a product — and a victim — of the same cycle of despair: a slum-bound existence defined by rampaging vermin, near-starvation, a depressive mother…
Serenade in Blues
A few years back, independent filmmaker Heather Korb started sniffing around Houston’s music scene for a possible documentary. Her search led her to a local blues vet named Joe “Guitar” Hughes. Through Hughes, Korb met blues legends Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Johnny Clyde Copeland and Albert Collins, and those introductions provided…
Capitaine Blood
GALVESTON — “They ‘ave been accusing me of taking American sheeps seence 1812. I do not steal from my own corn creeb!” As Todd Jensen calmly recites his lines for the umpteenth time, a roaring din surrounds him; the L.A. actor’s a placid atoll in a storm-tossed sea of technical…
Dish
Dining with Dad The more cynical among us might suspect that Father’s Day is yet another obligatory shopping event foisted on us by an unscrupulous greeting-card industry. (Actually, a Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, came up with the idea while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909.)…