Lofty Aspersions
The eviction notice arrived on a Tuesday, crisp and white and bearing the signature of Randall Davis. The developer had had enough of tenant Jay Seegers, and told him so in the most obvious way possible — by ordering Seegers out of the roomy, New York-style apartment he had rented…
Death in the Back Seat
Anytime a 15-year-old kid whose hands are cuffed behind his back is shot to death while riding in the back seat of a police car, someone has some explaining to do. Those were the circumstances surrounding the death of Jaciel Gonzalez, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head earlier…
Fleck Exonerated; Stockman Sued
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office has concluded that Press staff writer Tim Fleck broke no laws while inside Congressman Steve Stockman’s combination home and campaign headquarters on June 8. “Based on our usual standards, there was no criminal conduct” by Fleck during his brief encounter with Stockman campaign workers,…
Letters
Joe Leydon, an Honorable Man Unjustly Vilified In my opinion, Joe Leydon’s review of Mission: Impossible was right on the money, insofar as I pretty much agreed with all the points he made. Of course, I’ve disagreed with his reviews over the years, but the fact remains that his is…
Press Picks
thursday june 27 Mark Curry A while back, Mark Curry was working in a drugstore, keeping the customers in stitches. No, he wasn’t tending their wounds; he was making them laugh. And he was compelled to try it on a larger scale, taking his standup act to comedy clubs in…
Name Calling
Anyone who’s driven along Kirby Drive in the past couple of months has probably noticed a pair of restaurants that recently opened within blocks of each other. It’s not their proximity of location that makes them stand out, nor the fact that they share sports pub/fern bar-type menus. No, their…
Blues Without Blinders
Not too long ago, an internationally renowned authority on popular culture came to Houston and asked me to take him out to a few of the city’s select juke joints. This gentleman, like many experts, felt that the blues is a static, rigid format, one incapable of evolving without being…
Souls Revival
The Plimsouls reunion might have seemed a wee bit more momentous if the band’s demise in 1984 had been more of an event. But few were looking on when the Los Angeles quartet dissolved after four frustrating years. During that time, the group seemed to be going out of its…
Sound Check
For obvious reasons, surf music will be forever linked to summer. This is the time of year that record companies are inclined to blanket listeners with yet another mini-wave of sun-and-fun nostalgia. Not that summer is the only time such sounds are permitted. Historically, February has been as good a…
The Insider
Port of Desire With the profusion of poison pens jabbing over the upcoming appointment to fill the city’s slot on the Port Authority Commission, not all the stings being inflicted at City Hall these days are of the FBI variety. Two weeks ago, Port Commissioner Betti Maldonado, who unwittingly assisted…
Swing Time
“How Yoo Dawin’?” In conversation, Eddie Nichols flaunts the exaggerated syntactical swagger of Brooklyn, New York, conjuring visions of gangsters, hepcats and, not coincidentally, traveling swing bands. The last is particularly appropriate; Nichols, after all, sings for the Royal Crown Revue, whose key selling point is swing, though the seven-piece…
Clever Dame
Despite her enormous popularity as a writer, Agatha Christie has never been a favorite of the intellectuals. Christie fans claim this has nothing to do with the quality of her work, and everything to do with the genre she worked in: mystery stories simply don’t have much highbrow status. The…
Static
Is Parkway punk dead? For now, it appears that punk’s presence around Allen Parkway Village will vanish along with most of the Houston housing project. Over the last year, the APV Room, located in the Allen Parkway Village Community Center, became the unlikely weekend host to some noisy, fairly high…
Sayles’ Pitch
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Lone Star, a film richly steeped in Texas traditions and eccentricities, is that it was written and directed by a maverick independent moviemaker from Schenectady, New York. John Sayles, whose resume also includes Passion Fish, Eight Men Out and The Return of the Secaucus…
New World Order
To all outward appearances, the Brownstone is among the last of a dying breed: opulently decorated, overstuffed with Old World heirlooms, it looks like it was furnished half a century ago by a wealthy matriarch. One might expect the kitchen to be equally ancient in its approach to food. For…
Mood Over Matter
If you can’t get away to the rolling hills of Tuscany this summer, you can enjoy the next best thing by spending a couple of hours with Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty. Cinematographer Darius Khondji (Seven, Before the Rain) makes the sun-dappled countryside so appealing that you may be content simply…
The Lies of Texas
Early in John Sayles’ Lone Star, there is a heated discussion about textbooks that, quite obviously, is really about something else. The scene is a parent-teacher meeting in the border town of Frontera, Texas. The Hispanic parents are determined to push their demands for a revisionist approach to teaching Texas…
Slab o’ Trouble
We at David Weekley Homes are not just selling shelter; we are selling the dream of home ownership … a sense of security and stability … a stress-free retreat from the world … a place to raise a family … rest and relaxation … a place to create warm memories…
Weekley for the Defense
If the Murillos, Townsends and Ganjis tried to bring their suits against David Weekley Homes today, they might have a tougher time in court, thanks to revisions in the law approved during the 1995 legislative session. Those changes were largely due to the efforts of Texans for Lawsuit Reform and…