Hard News, Baby
Even though they dispute some Enron-type bookkeeping by rival KPRC, Channel 11 didn’t have the best of sweeps months in May. So, it appears, they are taking things to a new level: hard-core pornography. In a piece for the 5 p.m. news May 28 — a piece that was plugged…
Raspberry Razzle-Dazzle
The raspberry grilled chicken salad ($13) is not just a pretty salad singing with summery ingredients, it’s a substantial meal at Mockingbird Bistro (1985 Welch, 713-533-0200). In robust Mockingbird fashion, the salad arrives piled high on a large cool white platter, fluffed with various sturdy lettuces: purple radicchio, crunchy romaine,…
Ridley’s Recruits
Forget the piña coladas, and making love in the rain. But for those who lust for long summer walks on the beach — and staring at the sand instead of into someone’s eyes — listen up: The turtle patrol needs you. The Texas General Land Office and conservationists want to…
Tree Cop
A slight young woman enters the shadow of the looming magnolia tree on Milam Street. Her name is Carla Wyatt, and she’s officially earning her doctorate in environmental toxicology at Texas Southern University. But at this moment, she’s the tree cop. “I’ve been called the pistol-packing mama, guard dog, tree…
Letters
City Hall Gall Ban goofing off: I really enjoyed reading the feature “Parting Shots” [by Tim Fleck, May 15] about Mayor Brown. My impression of Brown is that he does not work hard, so his staff does not work hard. The article educated me as to Brown’s inability to make…
Beach Battle
At the 17th annual American Institute of Architects Sandcastle Building Competition, you won’t find amateurs making basic bucket-and-shovel sculptures. Instead, people who build homes and skyscrapers for a living will be constructing elaborate works of art, turning Galveston’s East Beach into a temporary gallery. “The process of creating a sand…
Lucinda Williams
The title is wholly ironic, given that these tracks are awash in misery and heartbreak. And here again is Lucinda Williams in her role as the literate honky-tonk angel who will go home with you on Friday night (after closing time, of course) but knows you’ll be back at the…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, June 5 Seven has turned one. The Midtown bar has had its ups and downs during the past year. “The first nine months were perfect,” says Chuck Russell, one of the bar’s owners, “and the last three have been weird.” The Fickle 500 — folks who go from new…
Blue October
Justin Furstenfeld’s battles with his band’s former label were numerous and nasty. Prior to the release of Consent to Treatment in 2000, the suits at Universal suggested that Blue October get rid of its signature violin. Furstenfeld knew then he was in a no-win situation, and the band was dropped…
Analyze This
Director Peter Weir’s 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock begins with the words of Edgar Allan Poe: “What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream.” Psychoanalysts are interested in dreams because they offer up information on our internal conflicts. Apparently Picnic at…
The Natural History
In its rush to place the Strokes atop a pedestal, the media overlooked the fact that the band simply wasn’t a visionary force. But there’s an upshot to the hype: The Strokes’ success means the rest of NYC’s so-called new wave bands (French Kicks, Mink Lungs, Secret Machines) are getting…
Crash Course on Cuba
Don’t expect an extensive lineup of movies at the Shrine of the Black Madonna Bookstore & Cultural Center’s Afro-Cuban Film Festival. The films aren’t the event’s primary focus. “The idea is to get another glimpse of Cuba, from inside,” says the Reverend Mwalimu Fana of the Shrine. Festivalgoers will learn…
Heart Felt
Credit the quality of a superior educational system. Or the native wit of two quick thinkers with a gift for understanding the human animal. Or the power of happy collaboration. In any event, Lawless Heart, the second feature co-written and co-directed by young Brits Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger, is…
Sporting Goods
FRI 6/6 For some reason, signatures of the famous are more valuable than, say, a regular dude’s John Hancock on a rubber check. Go figure. And the scrawl of the sportsman remains as popular as ever, especially on a photo or an official sweat-stained game jersey. Tri-Star Productions, Inc., a…
Foreign Affairs
French putz Xavier (Romain Duris) is depressed. The poor guy lives in Paris, has Amélie’s Audrey Tautou as a girlfriend, eats gourmet vegan dinners prepared for him by his free-spirited mother, and is being set up for a graduate degree in economics by a friend of his father’s. “I don’t…
Tiny TUTS
TUE 6/10 Aside from stage mothers, few people know that Theatre Under the Stars has a department just for kids. TUTS ON TOUR, the professional student performing troupe from the Humphreys School of Musical Theatre, is the official training wing of Theatre Under the Stars. For five years now, the…
Ark de Triomphe
Perhaps only a fanatical Russian filmmaker, steeped in a history as ruthless and magnificent as the nation’s harsh winters and endless landscapes, could have dreamed up and executed such an audacious plan: an 87-minute, dreamlike journey through 300 years of Russian/Soviet history, told in a single, uncut Steadicam shot that…
Dancing Stiffs
FRI 6/6 People, people, we know that each week, you look forward to shedding the oppressive shackles of your weekday, workday life and getting in the groove of things. And the monthly musical event known as “Global Fusions,” happening this Friday at Last Concert Cafe, is looking for a few…
High Flier
Through June 22 at the Wortham Theater Center’s Cullen Theater, 713-228-OPERA or 1-800-62-OPERA. $30-$85.
ArrowFest
SAT 6/7 ArrowFest — alternately titled MulletFest — is a daylong trip back to junior high dances and fist-pounding power ballads. In other words, the show should be good for a few laughs. The Fabulous Thunderbirds are on the bill, and that’s funny in itself. Be careful not to chuckle…
Shallow Hamlet
Through June 22 at the Alley Theatre, 615 Texas, 713-228-8421. $35-$50.
Dirty Mothers For Ya
Seattle’s Supersuckers are intensely profane, utterly inane and eternally juvenile. Since forming in Tucson, Arizona, in 1987, the Supersuckers have nurtured a hell-raising sex-crazed party-animals reputation with songs like “I Want the Drugs,” “Non-Addictive Marijuana,” “My Kickass Life,” “Hungover Together,” “She’s My Bitch,” “Hell City, Hell” and “Ron’s Got the…
Idiot Savant
A skinny kid with a shock of blond hair wandered into my undergraduate painting critique at North Texas in the fall of 1989. Vernon Fisher was our professor and this guy wanted to show his new work. He propped a canvas against the wall and then put his skateboard underneath…
Houston Music Map
What do you do when you go in an acquaintance’s house for the first time? If you’re a music fan, chances are you inspect the CD collection and start making snobby summary judgments that flavor your relationship with that person forever and ever. At Amazon.com, you can vicariously check out…
Screwed!
On an early August afternoon last fall, Robert Casey, a sergeant with the Harris County Constable’s Office, was summoned into Constable Perry Wooten’s office. Wooten was in trouble. A grand jury had indicted him on two felony charges: theft by a public servant and abuse of power. And just that…
Northside Rumble
North Houston hard rockers Hollister Fracus have just finished playing a set at the Banana Bay club. Situated right at the water’s edge of Lake Conroe, it’s the kind of laid-back place that Parrotheads would populate during a summer day, ruminating the wisdom of “A Pirate Looks at Forty” over…
Food Fight’s Rancid Leftovers
Like a smorgasbord of day-old party appetizers, the quarter-billion-dollar Hobby Airport food and beverage contract of “Food Fight 2” fame is not getting any more delectable with the passage of time. After a federal judge’s preliminary rulings in litigation brought by loser CA One against the City of Houston, the…
Le Fracas Français
Domaine de Mourchon is a Côtes du Rhône village red with an inky color and the sort of concentrated fruit and intense flavor you’d expect from a more expensive Rhône, like a Châteauneuf-du-Pape or a Gigondas. Yet a bottle of the 2000 vintage sells for a mere $36 at Chez…