Back and Black
Tonight at 5:30 p.m. at the Shrine of the Black Madonna (5309 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.) New York Times sports columnist William C. Rhoden will be signing Third and a Mile: The Trials and Triumph of the Black Quarterback. He’ll be joined by former Oiler Warren Moon. We don’t…
Back and Black
Tonight at 5:30 p.m. at the Shrine of the Black Madonna (5309 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.) New York Times sports columnist William C. Rhoden will be signing Third and a Mile: The Trials and Triumph of the Black Quarterback. He’ll be joined by former Oiler Warren Moon. We don’t…
Getting Authentic
Craig Larotonda Today’s cover story is based largely on court documents and internal government memos, most of which can be found at The NarcoSphere, an online project of the Narco News bulletin. Unlike other publications which have covered the House of Death story, Narco News has not ignored the story’s…
Not That There’s Anything Wrong with It
What we wouldn’t give to be a stitch on that shirt. It’s the off-season for college football fans, a long dark tea-time of the soul. Many ardent aficionados while away the long cruel months between January and September assembling various all-time teams, dredging up YouTube clips of their favorite slobber-knocking…
Not That There’s Anything Wrong with It
What we wouldn’t give to be a stitch on that shirt. It’s the off-season for college football fans, a long dark tea-time of the soul. Many ardent aficionados while away the long cruel months between January and September assembling various all-time teams, dredging up YouTube clips of their favorite slobber-knocking…
Push Those Buttons
The Houston Press is now accepting animal photos for the first month of our photography contest for high school students. Please send all submissions to studentphotos@houstonpress.com For complete details and required image specifications, click here. Got a question? Perhaps we answered it here. Otherwise, hit us up at studentphotos@houstonpress.com This…
Jesus! Again?
Plocek/HouStoned Images Ltd., Ulmtd. Those 666 tattoos are really reaping the media benefits. ABC’s Primetime did five minutes on Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda last night. Click here for the story, none of which is new, but at least you can see Jesus pimping a pink T-shirt. — Keith Plocek…
Playbill: Hilary Sloan
Like her sister Miss Leslie of The Juke Jointers, Hilary Sloan was raised on hardcore country and has never really been tempted by much else. Childhood lessons as a bluegrass fiddler — bluegrass ran in the family — have made Sloan an in-demand session player and instrumentalist-for-hire around here for…
No Off-season
OK, the Houston Dynamo won the U.S. championship a few months back and if they’d been the Rockets or the Astros or the Texans (ha), they’d be laying back right now, doing a little fishing, hunting, enjoying life, whatever. But see in major league soccer when you win a national…
We Hear Rush Limbaugh Has Already Started Attacking the Jurors. No Joke.
One count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI. So we were sitting around the office, trying to figure out a local angle for the breaking news that Scooter Libby has just been found guilty in the CIA leak trial. As a service…
Whose Ball Is It Anyway?
“That guy, the one over there. No, not him, the other one. Yeah, him. Well, anyway, it’s his fault.” According to this story in today’s Chron, Sen. John Whitmire, chair of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, was told of sexual abuse at one TYC facility in 2005. When asked…
Not Bad for a 22-year-old
This is Matt Mullenweg. We can’t think of anything sarcastic to say, so we’ll just leave it at that. PC World has just come out with its list of the 50 Most Important People on the Web. The Google guys top the list at number one, followed by several other…
Truckers without Borders
www.telegraph.co.uk The real reason we’re using this graphic is to show how big Texas is when compared to England. Yee-haw! The Telegraph has an interesting story on Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor, in which the reporter connects the mega-road to a larger plan for a NAFTA Superhighway. Promoted by the North…
Yours, Mine and Ours
Courtesy of Baehman A Social Event contributor shows how they raised the roof back in ’23. Paul Druecke comes to the Aurora Picture Show this Saturday to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his “collaborative art project” A Social Event — and put an end to it. “It’s a little bittersweet,”…
Sabbath in the Park By Sabbath West
From an, ahem, anonymous tipster comes this info on a South by Southwest event: Sabbath in the Park By Sabbath West, Goin’ Down, Wooldridge Square, 11th Street, Austin, Texas, Saturday, March 17th, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., dudes. If you go, be sure to let us know how it turns…
Sabbath in the Park By Sabbath West
From an, ahem, anonymous tipster comes this info on a South by Southwest event: Sabbath in the Park By Sabbath West, Goin’ Down, Wooldridge Square, 11th Street, Austin, Texas, Saturday, March 17th, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., dudes. If you go, be sure to let us know how it turns…
Score One for the Uglies
This isn’t Jared Leto, but it is one helluva ‘stache. We’re not sure if Jared Leto’s taking the stage tonight at Verizon with his band, 30 Seconds to Mars, but one thing’s for sure: The dude’s probably a little uglier than last time you saw him. His nose was broken…
Of Course, Then You’d Have to Admit You Went to the Show
Hannah Montana might’ve whooped the previous record for rodeo ticket sales, but some technical difficulties prevented more than a few fans from hearing the, um, whatever you call the music produced by Hannah Montana. Says a rodeo release: Um, yeah, you’re keeping quiet. We get it. Now where’s our freakin’…
Why Bother Writing Something Original When You Can Just Summarize Another Source?
Looks like Chron columnist Rick Casey is going on a five-month hiatus. Whited and Slampo are already all over it, so we won’t bother with our own take. Just think of it as snark outsourcing. — Keith Plocek…
The Marketing of the Beast
Plocek/HouStoned Images Ltd., Ulmtd. Looks like Creciendo en Gracia’s tattoo marketing scheme is working out quite well. Check out the Google News results for the last few days. Here’s a link to an English translation of the original sermon in which Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda flaunted his devil ink…
Kid, You’re Gonna Be a (Reality TV) Star!
Are you fat? Do you want to lose weight and think being embarrassed on national television would be the best way to do it? ABC is casting for a new reality show tomorrow at Live Sports Cafe (405 Main) from noon to 4 p.m. Here’s the pitch: Each of the…
Catfish Reef: Somethin’ Serious
Big Mike Somethin’ Serious Rap-A-Lot By the time this1994 Dirty South landmark solo debut was released, New Orleans / Houston rapper Big Mike already had toiled at a local Olive Garden, cut an album as a member of the legendarily filthy and violent Rap-A-Lot group the Convicts, roomed with (and…
Ballz
Feel free to piss this guy off. It’s not like he’ll chunk a ball at your head or anything. Do you start cringing in fear when you think of the Astros’ starting rotation this year? Do you still burn a Charlie Casserly doll in effigy? Do you go around constantly…
Learning to Crawl
Don’t forget to hop on the light rail after work today and head down to the Flying Saucer. The Houstonist Light Rail Pub Crawl begins there at 5:30 p.m. We told you about it earlier in the week. The group will leave from there and board the boozer cruiser light…
Getting Tagged at Houston’s Airports
Ever gotten back from a long trip and not had the money to pay parking at the airport? Starting March 30 if you’ve got an EZ TAG on your car, you’ll be able to use that to pay at either Hobby or George Bush Intergalactic. Now there will be special…
No Place Like Home
Home improvement? More like home im-screw-ment! Oh! KNBC in Los Angeles has a story on an alleged scheme by the Home Depot to screw customers nationwide. Apparently the Depot “overcharges customers on window and siding installations, kitchen remodels and on roofing jobs,” often billing folks for items that are never…
Idol Chatter
Dedications week has come to an end and so has “the journey” for four more American Idol contestants. (When did everybody start calling participation in a reality show a “journey”? It’s pretentious and really fucking annoying.) Who will hear Daniel Powter’s death song this week? Hometown hero Sundance Head stepped…
Idol Chatter
Dedications week has come to an end and so has “the journey” for four more American Idol contestants. (When did everybody start calling participation in a reality show a “journey”? It’s pretentious and really fucking annoying.) Who will hear Daniel Powter’s death song this week? Hometown hero Sundance Head stepped…
Any Which Way But Juice
Houston really won’t stay out of the national news. Sure, we’ve got W to thank for a lot of that, but there’s also Halliburton, Enron, Anna Nicole, Lisa Nowak and Donnie Davies — in no order of importance. Now added to the list are Evander Holyfield and a Sugar Land…
Any Which Way But Juice
Houston really won’t stay out of the national news. Sure, we’ve got W to thank for a lot of that, but there’s also Halliburton, Enron, Anna Nicole, Lisa Nowak and Donnie Davies — in no order of importance. Now added to the list are Evander Holyfield and a Sugar Land…
Giddy Up
Daniel Kramer Today marks the first day of our photography contest for Houston-area high school students. This month’s theme is “animals,” and if you submit one of the best photos, there could be a thousand bucks in it for you. Send all submissions to studentphotos@houstonpress.com, but be sure to click…
Playbill: Jimmy Lafave
(c) 2006 Jimmy Lafave Jimmy Lafave I recently talked with Jimmy Lafave about one of his favorite subjects, Oklahoma songwriting legend Jimmy Webb. The longer the conversation went on — and there are no short conversations with the ebullient Lafave — the more I realized what a student of songwriting…
Mark Germino
In the span of four weeks back in 1984, Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett, and Mark Germino were all signed to major label record deals. Historically this watershed event was a reaction to the Urban Cowboy phase running out of steam and has been humorously dubbed “the Great Nashville…
Hotel Campers
In 1984, Terri Burnette and four other Girl Scouts set up a campground from scratch out in a field in Colorado. They were putting on workshops for Brownies and needed a place for the younger girls to stay. “We sunk all the posts and built the platforms for the tent,”…
Like Pigs to Slaughter
Wild Hogs — in which John Travolta, William H. Macy, Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence play emasculated suburbanites taking a cross-country motorcycle trip to rediscover their masculinity — doesn’t even sound like a real movie when you describe it to people. They give you that yer-shittin’-me stare, as though it…
Building a Mystery
At the hotel: Thanks for some insight into the building that my friends and I lovingly remember as the Crack Hotel [“This Blows!” by Craig Malisow, February 15]. Until your article, I had no idea that the hotel was originally a Holiday Inn. Back in 1996, when I was 15,…
Stage Capsule Reviews
Burn This Playing one of the most incendiary, original characters in modern drama, Pale in Lanford Wilson’s 1987 oddball romance drama, Bernardo Cubria sets Silver House Theatre’s small stage afire. Let’s hope Unhinged Productions carries insurance. Cubria lights up the place and the overwrought script with a blazing characterization that…
The Gospel According to Gnarls
St. John of the Cross, a 16th-century Spanish mystic, described something called “the dark night of the soul,” which he defined as that necessary descent on the way to salvation. Fast-forward to late 2003: Brian Burton — a.k.a. DJ Danger Mouse — suffers through panic attacks while chopping, screwing and…
Spaghetti Western Art
Italian artist Andrea Bianconi created a whole body of work about the American West before ever seeing it. His visit to Houston for the opening of his show “Pony Express” at Barbara Davis Gallery was his first trip to the country, let alone Texas. The American West has been a…
Houston Rock Scene Woes, Continued
Brad Moore has been a dedicated observer of and participant in the Houston rock scene for about 15 years. A former denizen of the gone-but-not-forgotten Lexington Street rock enclave; a member of the bands the Keenlies, Bloodfart, the Oilers and the One and Only Cigarettes; a band booker at Laveau’s;…
Art Capsule Reviews
“Ariane Roesch” Ariane Roesch is still in school at the University of Houston, but she’s managing to put out some really interesting work. In her show at DeSantos Gallery, Roesch reprints and manipulates vintage photographs — both personal and found. She uses threads, yarn and wires to physically create connections…
SXSW, WTF?
As reported on many blogs across the Texas musical world, the list of bands accepted as official artists for this year’s South by Southwest festival came out recently. It was critically panned by bloggers, hipsters and everyone in between, and I gotta say, I’m right there with ’em. I’ve been…
Loving and Teasing That Silly Gabacho
Dear Mexican, As a kid, I grew up with Mexicans who stole things just to steal. As an adult, I see much of the same behavior from adult Mexicans and their children. And I don’t mean just the poor Mexicans. Why is it in their nature for Mexicans to steal?…
Cred Sheet
Literary Triumph Seven different people pitch a book on Weezer’s Pinkerton to the 33 1/3 series. Yeah, whatever, as long as you leave room for Hysteria and Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em. TV Party The tortured “gotcha” syntax of American Idol elimination meetings. The ol’ “I’m very sorry to tell…
Virtually Perfect
Publisher: Sega
Platform: PlayStation 3
Price: $59.99
ESRB Rating: T (for Teen)
Score: 8 (out of 10)
Song Title Scrabble
We took the top 20 songs on the Billboard hit singles chart and scrambled the words in the titles and came up with new, improved (and we hope clever) titles. Scramble, scramble, scramble, here’s what we came up with: 1. “Runaway Cupid” by Gwen Stefani 2. “Say It Ain’t Sweet”…
Weed Killer
Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (New Line) You probably already know where you stand on Tenacious D, the pudgy hard rock comedy duo that made Jack Black famous. And if you haven’t heard of them, this isn’t the place to start: Their DVD of short films and music…
Fall Out Boy
Sub-par live shows, photos of bassist Pete Wentz’s penis and petty Internet fights with ex-friends can’t stop the pop-punk juggernaut known as Fall Out Boy. Any criticism lobbed at the Chicago quartet is addressed head-on or is slyly incorporated into lyrics and videos, meaning that the band is practically immune…
Our top DVD picks for the week of March 1
Bratz: Fashion Pixiez (Lions Gate) Conversations With God (Fox) Cool It Carol (Image) Deep Red (Blue Underground) Dreamland (Image) Filmation’s Ghostbusters (Brentwood) George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing (MPI) Journey to the End of the Night (First Look) Little Einsteins: The Legend of the Golden Pyramid (Disney) Hawaii, Oslo (Film…
Wired All Wrong
Is there such a thing as “fate” in musical collaborations? There is if you’re former sElf frontman Matt Mahaffey and former God Lives Underwater guru Jeff Turzo. The pair came together after each found himself watching videos of the other’s band on MTV’s 120 Minutes — the station had confused…
Papercuts
Gnomonsong
Wonderful Life
Maybe it was Oscar fever, but last weekend, a lot of the Houston Ballet repertory program Life and Laughter was reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Take the Houston premiere of artistic director Stanton Welch’s Tu Tu. Created for San Francisco Ballet in 2003, this is a gorgeous ensemble…
What Made Milwaukee Famous
They don’t come from Milwaukee and they don’t look like the type to guzzle down blue-collar beers, but this Austin-based quartet does serve up some sudsy, synth-y pop rock that will appeal to fans of Franz Ferdinand/Killers/Stills/Strokes. In fact, Michael Kingcaid (vocals/guitar/keys), Drew Patrizi (keys/guitar), John Farmer (bass) and Jeremy…
Liquid Lunch
Sometimes you’ve just gotta have that four-beer lunch. Maybe the weather’s been bad for awhile, or maybe you’ve hit a boring patch at your job, or it could be that it’s just time to shake things up in general. Simply put, some days require an extended recess. The thing is,…
Isis
In the early ’90s, punk rockers began removing the trademark elements of their music — speed, anger and ugliness — to find out what it was about their music that really mattered, in the process creating the adventurous and introspective genre now known as post-rock. Right now, the exact same…
Give Me the Electric Chair
When you order tacos al pastor at Mexico’s Deli on Dairy Ashford, the marinated pork and bits of pineapple are carved from a “trompo,” a cone of meat on a vertical roaster, on display beside the grill. The tangy pork is served on three small tortillas with a garnish of…
Big Chris Gates and Gatesville
Big Chris Gates’s bands, particularly Big Boys (197984) and Poison 13 (198485), have sacred status in the worlds of hard-core punk, skate punk and grunge. Led by openly gay singer Randy “Biscuit” Turner and publicized nationally by the influential skateboard magazine Thrasher, Austin’s Big Boys were some of the first…
The Davenport
I walk into The Davenport (2115 Richmond, 713-526-9997) to join my friend Sanchez for a double date: mine with a brunet spiritualist, his with a blond poet. The place has a Combustible Edison-esque, ’50s lounge feel and drinks more potent than black tar heroin. There’s a fireplace with a DVD…
Killer Instinct
When the editorial cartoonist turned amateur sleuth Robert Graysmith published Zodiac, his sprawling, meticulously researched account of the eponymous San Francisco serial killer, he wrote that the tale was “the most frightening story I know,” and it was easy to understand why. Graysmith was writing in 1985, some 16 years…
Black Eyeliner Blitz
Although Jared Leto is now 35 years old, he will forever be associated with high school. Thirteen years ago, Leto starred as the rebel Jordan Catalano on My So-Called Life and was idolized by throngs of teenage girls. Today, he’s still making female high schoolers swoon, only this time as…
Hussy ‘N’ Flow
It may be hard out there for a pimp, but it ain’t too hard for a writer-director to make a movie whose marketing hinges on the lurid spectacle of Samuel L. Jackson pulling a half-naked Christina Ricci around on a chain. This sort of cheap trick is what they used…
Roman Scandals
If you consider the HBO series Rome to be historically accurate, you probably think that, with all its lust, bloodshed and social upheaval, one of the world’s greatest civilizations was little more than The Sopranos: The Early Years. Okay, so less than half of the Roman emperors died of natural…
BEERS, STEERS AND…
You’re not officially a Houstonian until you’ve done a couple of things: given the finger to an SUV that cut you off on the Southwest Freeway; tried to mentally calculate just how old Marvin Zindler is; and, finally, gone to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. The rodeo is a…
Spoiler Alert
It is November 7, election day in America, the year of our Lord 2000, and en route to the ballot (screen, chad dimpler, whatever) every hand miraculously freezes in mid-selection. All at once, there is a lightning-fast stroboscopic blip of the future: two planes, human rain, a shower of debris…
Mexican, Through and Through
The homemade corn tamale cakes ($4.99) at Gringo’s (12330 Southwest Freeway, 281-980-7482) may remind you of the cuisines of several cultures, but they’re still distinctly Mexican. Three round slices of a bright-yellow corn cake are fried on a griddle. Their consistency and texture evoke Italian polenta as well as Venezuelan…