Breaking News: Alex Chilton Of Big Star Dies In New Orleans
Alex Chilton, the influential and undeniably odd yet talented musician who fronted the Box Tops and later Big Star, has died in New Orleans at the age of 59. Originally from Memphis, Chilton was wildly prolific from his initial days as a 1960s teen idol and through the 1970s while…
Hlavaty On The Hloose At SXSW: Roky + Okkervil Close, Stoner Blooze, Nigerian Neo-Soul, Silver Robots, Green Dreads…
5:08 p.m.: “This is how Roky should sound.” 5:09 p.m. Rocks Off Sr.: “How’s that?” 5:09 p.m.: “Starry Eyes. Man, when he’s backed by true fans he is on fire. Will and the guys and lady do him more than justice.”…
Hlavaty On The Hloose At SXSW: Roky Erickson, Okkervil River And The Sweetest Skynyrd Tattoo Of All Time
4:08 p.m.: “Back on Sixth. Sea of green. Full tilt SXSW already. Paste party now.” 4:11 p.m.: “Roky Erickson inside Paste tent party in 15.” 4:12 p.m. Rocks Off Sr.: “YOU MUST GET A PIC OF ROKY” 4:15 p.m.: “Stand alone mustaches are ruling the day. Free booze lines 800…
Sampler Plate: This Week In Food Blogs
Ed. Note: We received incorrect information about John Tesar leaving his restaurant in The Woodlands. It has been corrected below, and an updated blog post about his new venture will be published later this week. We regret the error. Each week, we put together a sampler plate of the most…
Cowboy Tales From The Rodeo: Squabbling Like Brothers
Rodeo cowboys basically live on the road, traveling with men and women crazy enough to ride, rope and wrestle live animals for a paycheck. Each day, Hair Balls is asking a different cowboy to tell us a little bit about himself and his wildest story from a life of rodeo…
Hlavaty On The Hloose At SXSW: The Fader Fort, MGMT Rumors, Mariachi El Bronx, The Meaning of “Prison Wallet” And A BBQ Truck In Peril
2:04 p.m. Rocks Off Sr. to Hlavaty: “OK hoss, let’s hear something about some music this hour.” 2:22 p.m.: Hlavaty, by phone: “I gotta run over to the Fader Fort to pick up some credentials, and I’m doing a video interview with Mariachi el Bronx at a taco truck after…
Robb Walsh’s 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #78 Crazy Irishman Sushi Roll at Soma on Washington
Over the course of the next few months, I’m counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in the comments…
Game Time: Hating Duke, A Visual Montage
I’ll admit it, I hate the Duke Blue Devils. The players, the assistant coaches, the head coach, the Cameron Crazies. All of them. In all of their floor-slapping, charge-taking, horrid-flopping, leg-humping, press-conference-crying, nose-picking, baby-whining, face-painting, Speedo-wearing Vitale-itarian misery, I hate them.Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I had…
Irish Soda Bread
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we bring you an Irish soda bread recipe courtesy of Rory O’Connell. Epicurious.com recently interviewed Irish chef Rory O’Connell about his experiences with Irish soda bread. According to Chef O’Connell, traditional Irish soda bread is made with flour, baking soda, buttermilk and salt. However,…
Obama Shows Little March Madness Love For Texas Schools
Texas — not just UT, but the state’s other March Madness teams — ain’t getting much love from Barack Obama. His annual bracket picks do have Baylor, A&M and Texas getting past the first round, but not UH.Take heart, Coog fans: As Obama says, “I got killed last year in…
Snackshot: Citizen Journalists
Armando Rayo (Mando for short) and J.D. Nasaw are two Austin-based food bloggers that you couldn’t help running into during SXSWi, and for good reason: They’re intent on changing the world for the better through food and blogging. Mando originally hails from El Paso and is better known through his…
Behind the Lyrics: Bunz is Twin City’s Lifeline to Houston Hip-Hop
[Ed. Note: We temporarily interrupt our real-time SXSW coverage to give you something else to read about for one of the last times this week.] Richmond and Rosenberg are tough places to describe, partly because there are many faces to the two towns, which are referred to on the streets…
Getting Jerked Around by the Hi-Miler at the Rodeo Carnival
We didn’t ride the Hi-Miler, instead leaving the roller coaster to 11-year-old Hair Balls correspondent Jade Matusow and our excellent photographer, Jeff Balke. As you’ll see below, neither rated the ride with a very high barf or scream factor. But they still seemed harried afterward. Balke described the ride as…
Top 10 Springtime Vodka Infusions
When it comes to infusions, there is a great debate about which types of liquors best absorb which flavors. We have been experimenting for years with many types of alcohols, fruits, veggies and herbs. What we have discovered is that often it is simply a personal preference not mandated by…
Judge Who Set Aside $100 Million Award Against BP Went On Junket Partially Funded By The Company
A Houston federal judge who set aside a $100 million verdict against BP on Tuesday has taken an all-expenses-paid educational junket that was partially funded by the oil giant.In 2008, U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt attended a three-day long program in Sedona, Arizona hosted by the George Mason Law…
Hlavaty On The Hloose At SXSW: Boy, Do We Have Our Hands Full…
1:17 p.m.: Rocks Off Sr. reached Hlavaty by phone, wondering why it had been more than 15 minutes since we’d heard anything from him. “I just met Sean Padilla from Cocker Spaniels and bought some of his cookies,” he reported. “Snickerdoodles, five for $5. I told him I would, so…
Blog Star: Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess
This week we’re putting out our list of Blog Stars, a feature story on ten of the best and the brightest in Houston. The bloggers in the story write on a wide range of topics, from sports to politics to the law to food and beyond, and many of them…
Frank’s Chicken-Fried Chop House
While researching this week’s Café review of Frank’s Chop House, I expected to eat a lot of chops. What I didn’t expect was one of the best chicken-fried steaks in recent memory. Did this one taste so good just because I haven’t eaten a decent CFS in a while? Or…
Hlavaty On The Hloose At SXSW
While Rocks Off Sr. holds down the fort in Houston, we’ve dispatched Craig Hlavaty, the Riker to our Picard, as a one-man away team to SXSW, and he’s already been a busy boy. Reinforcements will arrive in time for tomorrow’s shift, and we’ll be making our way to Austin ourselves…
Lead Plaintiff In “Toxic Town” Lawsuit Dies
A little over two years ago, the Houston Press published an award-winning story looking into Somerville, a small town 90 miles northwest of here that contained a plant that made railroad ties.”Toxic Town” described the high rate of cancer in the town and focused on the lead plaintiff, Dennis Davis,…
Aftermath: Keith Urban, Peculiar Superstar And Musician’s Musician
Keith Urban is a peculiar superstar. Take away the rugged good looks, and you’d still be left with a talented guitarist who, Tuesday night, gave every impression he’d be just as content jamming in the studio as headlining the rodeo before almost 60,000 adoring, possibly hyperventilating fans. In fact, Urban…
The Big Secrets In Bill White’s Tax Returns, Revealed
You know things have gotten off on the wring foot challenging Rick Perry when the state’s leading political writer compares your operation to Kay Bailey Hutchison’s.Here’s how things have gone in the Texas governor’s race since the primaries: Rick Perry has been in Patton mode, ostentatiously “activating” a secret plan…
The Yelp Effect
Although there was no shortage of food-related panels at the Interactive portion of South by Southwest (SXSWi) this year, none were as insightful or as incendiary as The Yelp Effect, a frank discussion on the effect that online reviews and criticisms have on the restaurant industry. Led by Addie Broyles,…
Snackshot: Moonshine
If you’ve got some cash to spare at SXSW and you love comfort food, Moonshine (303 Red River) will scratch your itch in more ways than one. Located directly across Red River from the downtown Hilton — no cabs or buses needed — this high-end down-home restaurant is nestled into…
Rocks Off’s Rodeo Concert Guide: Larry Harry Barry Terry Gary Allan
Date: March 17 Name: Gary Allan AKA: “The Media Assassin”…sorry, that’s Harry Allen Genre: Latter Day country Best Known Song(s): “Man to Man,” “Nothing On But the Radio,” “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” Key Demographic: Dallas Cowboys fans (sorry, that’s Larry Allen), DC Comics enthusiasts (sorry, that’s Barry…
For St. Patrick’s Day: Five Iconic (And Not At All Stereotypical) Irish Characters
It’s St. Patrick’s Day again, which means everyone not visibly non-white will claim Irish heritage to better justify their criminal alcohol abuse and the Celtics will — for one day, at least — be the most celebrated sports franchise in the land. You’re probably all well acquainted with how to…
St. Patty’s Day Treat: Guinness Milkshakes
Guinness is to Ireland what St. Arnold’s is to Houston: a diehard local favorite used for drinking, basting, cooking, roasting, marinating and celebrating. But mostly drinking. It’s a national treasure, a regional gem, an Irishman’s delight. So start your St. Patrick’s Day celebration off right with an afternoon Guinness Milkshake…
Aftermath: Another Round Of Bands Watching Bands At SXSW Overflow Fest
The Extraordinaires, debating a late night or early start. Videos by Matthew Keever Two days had gone by since we last visited the SXSW Overflow Fest at Super Happy Fun Land, and the number of people in attendance seemed to have quadrupled. Tuesday night, the bands had much better luck…
A (Somewhat Limited) List Of Reasons To Watch The Astros This Season
So I had a friend the other day asking me why he should bother with watching the Houston Astros this season. I went with the because-you-love-baseball answer, and he went the-Astros-aren’t-baseball answer. And I’ve got to confess, looking at Brian McTaggart’s proposed Opening Day roster, there’s really not that much…
Aftermath: SXSW Begins With A Bang, And A Blade, At Motörhead
It wasn’t a SXSW-sanctioned show, but for Motörhead, Aftermath will spare the formalities. Last night at Stubb’s in Austin, the prolific and iconic punk-metal-biker-doom band turned in a concrete gig to unofficially open SXSW 2010 with a decidedly hellish bang. Aftermath nearly missed the opening song, “Iron Fist,” due to…
American Idol: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
This is clearly the point in American Idol where the producers start spending a little more money. Now that we’re down to the top 12 singers, we get a bigger stage and more taped pieces, and every performer has been given a makeover and better make-up. This is especially noticeable…
Idol Beat: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
This is clearly the point in American Idol where the producers start spending a little more money. Now that we’re down to the top 12 singers, we get a bigger stage and more taped pieces, and every performer has been given a makeover and better make-up. This is especially noticeable…
A Dance With The Fearsome Tango At The Rodeo Carnival
If your stomach is even a little weak, the Tango is not for you. It doesn’t look *that* terrifying, but trust us, once you are rapidly spinning around upside down, you’ll be wondering when it will end. Halfway through the Tango, 11-year-old Hair Balls correspondent Jade Matusow declared, “Okay, I…
Artist Of The Week: Partying Beaumont-Style With Hellbilly Hellions The U-Joints
Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group “Artist of the Week,” bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn’t awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. Here are some things that are fascinating: hell,…
Stirred & Shaken: George’s Raspberry Cordial
Even as a straight guy, it’s hard to tell the difference between gay bar George (617 Fairview, 713-528-8102) and any other neighborhood establishment (besides the complete absence of females and the open male-on-male affection, of course). My friend Craig and I had been thinking about a place to grab a…
Cops Looking For Guys Who Almost Pulled Off Well-Planned Home Invasion
It was a little after 8 p.m. on Monday when a convenience store owner pulled up in front of his suburban home in northwest Houston. With his keys in hand, he walked up to his front door, just like he always did, no doubt happy to finally spend a little…
Run Through The Jungle: A Zoological Field Guide To SXSW 2010
Even if you’ve never pulled a trigger in your life, SXSW is, on some level, an exercise in hunting. Rocks Off had no idea how true this was until earlier this afternoon. As we were looking over the schedule at sxsw.com, we got the brilliant idea to note every band…
Flying High at the Rodeo Carnival: The Sky Flier
When we braved the Rodeo Carnival last year with Hair Balls correspondent Jade Matusow, we didn’t get to try the Sky Flier. The day was too windy, and in the interest of not having people swing into each other, the ride was shut down. Not so last Saturday, a beautiful,…
Bobby Heugel’s Weekly Cocktail: The Old-Fashioned
Despite being one of the world’s most iconic cocktails, few drinks are more commonly misunderstood and incorrectly made than the Old-Fashioned. Yes, after four weeks, this cocktail column is finally going to touch a controversial drink. But before anyone angrily storms away to slam nine extremely stout versions made “the…
The Rockets’ Kenny Smith, Keeping His Eyes On….Something
Former Houston Rockets star Kenny Smith is a spokesperson for some March Madness-related thing called the SoBe Bracket Challenge, whose website breathlessly notes participation is limited to five million entrants. At this writing 4,924,535 slots remain!!)As part of the kick-off, someone described as “reality star” Kendra Wilkinson showed up for…
Flag Down The Police Chief, Show Him Your Weed, Go To Jail
A word of caution: if you’re walking the streets at 4 a.m. with an ounce of weed in your bra, randomly flagging down cars so you can find someone who wants to party, try to make sure you don’t run out and wave your arms in front of a car…
The Five Worst Spring Break Alcohols
Spring Break is a time for roaming the beach looking for good, clean, wholesome fun killer parties and new friends. Here are the top 5 drinks to stay away from so you can keep enjoying your break, and not the bathroom floor of your hotel. We’ve made the mistakes so…
Cowboy Tales From The Rodeo: From The Hockey Rink To Steer Wrestling
Rodeo cowboys basically live on the road, traveling with men and women crazy enough to ride, rope and wrestle live animals for a paycheck. Each day, Hair Balls is asking a different cowboy to tell us a little bit about himself and his wildest story from a life of rodeo…
Your Sex Is On Tour: Kings Of Leon Announce Second Houston Date In A Year
Nashville alt-rock pin-ups the Kings of Leon are hitting Houston again for the second time in a year, with a newly announced date at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion September 22. The band has been on a tear since the release of 2008’s Only by the Night, shedding their scruffy,…
Game Time: Ten Historically Significant March Madness Buzzer Beaters
In my effort to help everyone prepare for March Madness, I bring you the second installment of the March Madness Preview. (Click here for yesterday’s first installment — you know the part with my picks and what not.) Today, we look at some of the most historical buzzer beaters in…
Lucky Pot’s Croaker in Brown Sauce
While we were eating lamb dumplings at Lucky Pot, I saw a couple of unusual fish on the menu. It’s not every day you see croaker in a restaurant, so I ordered one whole with brown sauce. It was exceptionally flavorful. And I am told it’s a fairly common fish…
Breaking: Metro To Have Outsiders Investigate Chief’s Alleged “Inappropriate Relationship”
They seem to be circling the wagons at Metro. This release just came out: METRO Chairman David S. Wolff announced that he has asked UHY Advisors, a global business advisory and consulting company, to conduct an independent investigation into allegations that public funds were misused at METRO because of an…
Magnolia City Mixtape: Buxton, Wild Moccasins, Fight Pretty, Fat Tony, Fiskadoro And Still More SXSW Stuff
MCM doesn’t really understand this Ford Fiesta Movement clown-car nonsense, but we do know Buxton – as lensed by sometime Rocks Off shutterbug Mark C. Austin – manages to sound awesome even packed into the back of a tiny sedan. The Wild Moccasins’ tour kickoff will be April Fool’s Day at…
Odd Pair: Twinkies and Nicolas Hermen Piesporter Goldtropfchen Spatlese
This week, we were feeling a bit nostalgic, so we decided to pair Twinkies with wine. We haven’t had a Twinkie since we were about 12 years old. But you’re never too old for a Twinkie. People have been enjoying Twinkies since 1930. Today you can even find them battered…
Rating The Rodeo Rides, Part 1: The Disko
The new ride at the rodeo this year is the Disko. It spins you in circles on a disc, making you feel like it’s going to spin off track and throw you — in other words, it’s a lot of fun.We rode the Disko with 11-year-old Hair Balls correspondent Jade…
Rocks Off’s Rodeo Concert Guide: Keith “That’s Not A Knife” Urban
Date: March 16 Name: Keith Urban AKA: “The Betty Ford Center Presents…” Genre: Aussie country Best Known Song(s): “Somebody Like You,” “You’ll Think of Me,” “No Really, I Loved Days of Thunder” Key Demographic: Women looking for concrete proof that they can change their man, people who mistakenly think “Keith…
Robb Walsh’s 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #79 Lamb Dumplings at Lucky Pot, 9888 Bellaire
Over the course of the next few months, I’m counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in the comments…
Sometimes You Just Pick The Wrong 63-Year-Old Guy To Rob
You’re looking at Quintin Wade Brown, 25, of Texas City. You may notice his left eye seems to be a bit distressed.That’s because Brown tried to rob a 63-year-old guy of two bucks and some potato chips outside a convenience store.Note to future robbers: Before attempting such a stunt, make…
Snackshot: Torchy’s Tacos
In only three years, Torchy’s (1311 S. 1st Street) has managed to establish itself as an Austin tradition. In a market saturated with both tacos and food trucks, that’s no easy task. Torchy’s secret is simple: They just serve damn good food. Located in the almost-too-cute-to-be-taken-seriously South Austin Trailer Park…
Ask A Rapper: Paul Wall Tells All On The Chamillionaire Reunion, His New Album And Budding Acting Career
The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place -lots of times, you’re even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good- so once a week we’re going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Have something you always wanted to ask…
Houston Wins March Madness Tournament!!! (Not The One You’re Thinking Of)
In an incredible upset, Houston has swept through the brackets of March Madness and taken the title.It’s not the Coogs, and it’s not the basketball championship.But if you’re wondering who would win the tournament of having the worst traffic of all the cities hosting March Madness games this year, wonder…
Snackshot: Food Tattoos
Amanda Joyner is a pastry chef who wears her heart on her sleeve – literally. Sure, she isn’t the first chef to permanently imprint themselves with their chosen profession or life’s passion (see: James Silk, Megan Silk and Richard Knight’s matching pig tattoos at Feast). But her tattoo, seen above,…
“Why Can’t It Be More Like Jazzfest?” Rick Mitchell Debunks The Top 10 Gripes He’s Overheard About Houston’s iFest
A couple of days ago, Houston International Festival Director of Performing Arts Rick Mitchell emailed Rocks Off and asked us if we’d mind reprinting something he wrote for the blog on iFest’s Web site. (That’s what all the cool kids call it.) We were happy to help, because it was…
Pop Rocks: How The Marriage Ref Almost Ruined My Marriage
My wife and I have been married for almost 14 years. In that time, we’ve had to come to a certain…understanding about each others’ tastes.We agree mostly on the big stuff, like politics (pinko), finances (slightly more free-spending than Ebenezer Scrooge), and child-rearing (sleep in a drawer and three squares…
Chef Chat, Part 2: Jin Ham
Yesterday Jin Ham of Shrimp Galley told us how running a seafood restaurant is better than being an engineer (bo-ring). Today he talks about what to get at Shrimp Galley and why today he faces more competition. Eating Our Words: Have you improved on the flavor or technique after you…
Aftermath: A Quiet Night At The Rodeo With Lady Antebellum, John Mellencamp (Sort Of) And Larry The Cable Guy
On Monday night, Lady Antebellum performed to a crowd of a little more than 65,000. Having been in a band, the idea of playing in front of so many people is both exciting and nerve-racking, but by RodeoHouston standards it’s about middle of the road, and felt like less. It…
Enjoy Your Media Moment In The Sun, Cougars
Now that the Houston Cougars have made the NCAA Tournament, I just want to welcome my fellow media members. And I want to ask: where in the hell have you been all season? You sure as hell haven’t been at the actual games.Steve Campbell’s made the games for the Houston…
Distant Early Warning: Al Green, Clint Black, Don McLean, Lightning Bolt, Ludacris, Miranda Lambert, Quintron & Miss Pussycat, Tony Joe White, Etc.
Female Demand, American Sharks, Satin Hooks, Tow The Line: Sun., March 28, 8 p.m. Walter’s on Washington. Al Green: Sun., May 16. Arena Theatre. Chuck Allen Floyd Band: Sat., June 12. Dosey Doe Coffee Company. Casiotone For the Painfully Alone, Magical Beautiful: Sat., April 17. Khon’s. Clint Black: Fri., Oct…
New On DVD: Did You Hear What Happened To The Morgans? If Not, You’re Lucky
A quick look at the DVDs being released today once again proves that there’s no accounting for taste. The box office money makers are Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, which raked in more than $102 million, and Ninja Assassin, which pocketed just over $38 million. Then there’s Did You…
South Bayou: Where And When Houston Artists Are Playing In Austin This Week
Monday afternoon, when Rocks Off was scouring our email, MySpace, Facebook and various other Web sites for the following information, this thought occurred to us more than once: “Why are we wasting our time telling Houstonians where to go see people during SXSW who they can see practically anytime at…
Where Are We Drinking?
Man cannot live on beer (or wine or whiskey) alone. Sometimes we have to take a little break from smoky taverns like the Marquis or dangerously dirty dives like Boondocks to refresh our senses — okay, and nurse a hangover — with a soothing cup of coffee. Does the latte…
For St. Patrick’s Day: Five Irish Movies You Need To See
Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, when everyone’s Irish, yadda yadda yadda.How best to get ready for it? Watching a movie tonight would be one way. Unfortunately, a lot of the “great” Irish movies suck. The Quiet Man? Oy vey. Maureen O’Hara is nicely feisty, but John Wayne is as wooden…
Houston Company Hit With Claim Its Fish Contain PCBs
A Houston-based fish-oil manufacturer might be exposing consumers to a harmful carcinogen, according to a lawsuit filed by environmental activists earlier this month.Filed in a California Superior Court, the suit accuses Omega Protein and seven other fish-oil manufacturers of failing to warn consumers that “ingestion of these products causes [consumers]…
Sunday in River Oaks, Feeling Broke
We were sipping martinis at La Griglia in River Oaks this weekend before going to the River Oaks Theatre. Sitting on the patio, we could watch all the plastique boobs and rainmakers pull up. Who needs Jersey Shore when you have hot spots like this? They were serving apple martini’s…
Cowboy Tales From The Rodeo: On The Road With Howdy Cloud
Rodeo cowboys basically live on the road, traveling with men and women crazy enough to ride, rope and wrestle live animals for a paycheck. Each day, Hair Balls is asking a different cowboy to tell us a little bit about himself and his wildest story from a life of rodeo…
Aftermath: Horse Feathers And Joe Pug Offer A Brief SXSW Preview At Mango’s
Sunday night at Mango’s, we finally got a live taste of a spry and springy Joe Pug and got to mellow the hell out with Portland, Oregon’s Horse Feathers (above). It was a decent way to send us off to our SXSW rondezvous with hipsters and faux-smiling carpetbaggers in Austin later this…
Top 5 Road Trip Foods
It’s Spring Break time – the week when you and all your closest friends set out for some beach destination to stir up trouble. How we wish we were still in college! For all of you who are about to squeeze in a car with one too many people, here…
Time For The Monthly Bus-Rail Crash In Front Of Metro Headquarters
This has got to be embarrassing. In a repeat performance, a Metro bus and rail train today collided in the same spot — in front of Metro’s downtown headquarters — where a Metro bus and rail train collided about a month ago. A couple days after the last one, Metro…
BRWN BFLO Is Ballsy; Preemo’s Concrete Dreams Passes the Time
“Illegal aliens come from all over the world, not just from the hole in the fence in San Diego.” – George Lopez, “Corazon,” on BRWN BFLO’s self-titled album. Rocks Off gets lots of thank-you notes from readers showing their appreciation for giving Latino hip-hop a voice, though we find it…
Chef Chat, Part 1: Jin Ham
Our previous Chef Chats have been inspiring talks with Houston’s up-and-coming chefs in some of the more prominent restaurants in town. But there are other amazing chefs in town that aren’t in the spotlight, many of them running family businesses, and we’d like to feature them too. Jin Ham, owner…
Sugar Land Gets Ready To Abase Itself To Google
Google, which is a company that is web-related (we think), is asking communities around the nation to abase themselves in a competition to get an experimental ultra-high-speed fiber system that can deliver the net at more than one gigabyte a second.That is about twice as fast as a system that…
Aftermath: Dick Dale, Merry Prankster And Heavy-Metal Grandpa, At HOB
Dick Dale is the grandfather of surf-rock, if your grandfather dressed like a 70-year-old Steven Segal, practically invented heavy metal (his 100-watt amp goes all the way to eleventy) and turned a traditional Greek song into a 1960s anthem. Like most grandfathers, he’s mawkish as hell, full of “back in…
Game Time: Your March Madness Preview, Complete With WARNING LABEL
“If Kansas is the best team in the country, college basketball is going to suck this season.” — @SeanCablinasian on Twitter That was a post I had on Twitter, dated and time stamped 10:29 PM on November 17. Kansas was the top-ranked team in the country at the time, and…
Snackshot: Polvos
Yes, there’s plenty of free food to be had at SXSW. But complimentary Zone bars and bags of Southwest peanuts can get a little old, as can waiting for 90 minutes in line only to get the dregs of some potato salad at a party for a company you’ve never…
Rocks Off’s Rodeo Concert Guide: Lady Antebellum’s Country Threesome
Date: March 15 Name: Lady Antebellum AKA: “Two Beards and a Babe” Genre: Threesome country Best Known Song(s): “I Run to You,” “Need You Now,” possible Juice Newton covers Key Demographic: Country fans who’ve longed for a redneck version of Black Eyed Peas, beginning piano players Previous HLSR Appearances: 2009…
Robb Walsh’s 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #80 A Bowl of Chili at James Coney Island
Over the course of the next few months, I’m counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in the comments…
Aftermath: Free Food, Free Beer, Great Music, No Audience At Super Happy Fun Land’s SXSW Overflow Fest
Austin’s Spells Videos by Matthew Keever On Sunday night at a sleepy Super Happy Fun Land, the SXSW overflow concerts went relatively unnoticed. Although the fans were scarce, the talent wasn’t. In front of less than 20 people – five or so of whom were sleeping – the likes of…
Recipe: Horchata Cubana
We Houstonians love our horchata. We are more used to the traditional Mexican-style horchata, which contains cinnamon and lime and often is served as a hangover cure on Sunday mornings (or a hangover starter when mixed with rum on Saturday nights). Cuban horchata, however, is simpler and traditionally given to…
Benefit This Week In Memory Of Two Rice Owls
Stone and Holt Weeks, two Rice students who died in a car accident last year, were well-liked brothers passionate about community service.Their death received a ton of media attention. Mostly because their father is well-known Washington journalist Linton Weeks, but partly because of how they led their lives.Their legacy is …
Aftermath: Blake Shelton – Could It Be? Country? – At RodeoHouston
It’s possible that Blake Shelton, aside from Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn, is the most traditional country act RodeoHouston will have this year. That’s either a step in the right direction or a happy accident on the part of the organizers. Let’s hope that it’s the former. Compared to…
Texas State Rep Goes All Hollywood With Matt Damon
We expected nothing more than “Bourne in Iraq” from Green Zone, but we were pleasantly surprised. Although the movie didn’t delve too far into the juicy tales of utter administration incompetence that the book did, it still delivered a good bit of entertainment and a fair recapping of the WMD…
The Coolest One-Word Album Titles Ever
Sometimes, a long, intricately descriptive name, list, or other chunk of writing can become irritating and lose some of its impact due to things such as repetition, over-enumeration, and dilution of impact; this sentence, for instance. It probably would have read much better phrased simply as “At times, brevity is…
Rabbit, Cow & Pig
Here’s an appetizer plate for you: from left to right, Sichuan rabbit, sliced beef and tendons, and spicy smoked pork jowls. I selected these three cold meat dishes from the appetizer buffet at Spicy Sichuan Restaurant in the 9888 Bellaire Shopping Center. The rabbit was in tiny pieces on the…
Unidentified Man, Bayou Body Count No. 64
All Norberto Antunes wanted was to steal a car. Then, when the cops showed up, all he desired was to get away. But Antunes didn’t get anything on his wish list. Instead, police say, he is being charged with murder. Investigators say that Antunes, 23, was apparently trying to pilfer…
First, They Came For My Legroom…Then They Came For My Food
Earlier this month Houston’s Continental Airlines announced that it would be improving its customer service for tall people by charging them for legroom.Today the airline announced it would be improving customer service for everybody in coach by no longer giving them free food.”Continental Airlines will change its in-flight meal service…
Lil’ Flip, Devin the Dude, Texas Board of Education vs. Hip-Hop, Wu-Tang Clan, Death Row Records, Z-Ro, Dr. Dre, Etc.
Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off’s weekly rap post. It probably won’t rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Anti-Single of the Week: “Garage Sale Rap,” Random White Guys From A Garage Sales Company That Might Actually Be A Real Thing, feat…
Baked Goods from the Haute Texan
We already felt lucky enough having stumbled upon Oh My! Pocket Pies in our neighborhood while out enjoying the sun last Saturday. But we’d just sat down in the grass outside the Menil Collection when we realized we’d gotten even luckier. Not only was free St. Arnold’s Amber on offer…
Selling Aussie Dreams at the Houston Rodeo
Photo by Hallie JordanIn its celebration of all things cowboy, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is the perfect venue for someone like Paul Watkins, an Australian now living in San Antonio. Watkins is holding down a booth in the Reliant Center. He’s there selling the chance to spend days…
Go Tejano Day Sets Rodeo Crowd Record; Lady Gaga Calls On Toyota Center July 15
Sunday’s Go Tejano Day, featuring norteño groups Pesado and El Trono de Mexico (above), set a new Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo paid attendance record with 74,222 people spinning the turnstiles. This is the second year in a row Go Tejano Day has topped the rodeo’s attendance charts after the…
Tripping the Light Fantastic at SXSW
It’s been far too long since we had a good, old-fashioned LSD miracle berry trip. The last flavor-tripping party was in September 2009 at then-new nightclub Ei8ht, and although Eating Our Words didn’t attend, we heard it was still as big as every other miracle berry event that Jenny Wang…
Aftermath: Ford Shilling Aside, Toby Keith Ain’t As Bad As He Once Was
It would be an understatement to say Aftermath wasn’t exactly looking forward to this show. Our previous experience with the esteemed Mr. Keith was limited to occasionally hearing his songs in bars and one night spent drinking at his restaurant in Oklahoma City. There was Plexiglas in front of the…
The Week In TV: Mad About Mad Men Barbie Dolls
I have no idea what day it is, my veins run thick with taquitos, and I took my shirt off in public. This was the week in TV Land: • I’m a little amazed at the amount of TV I was able to watch this past week considering I’ve spent…
Jason F. Wright And The Cross Gardener
Author Jason F. Wright’s latest release The Cross Gardener is an uplifting tale about how to deal with grief, loss, suffering and, most importantly, how to find the way back to hope. He spoke with Hair Balls about the novel, what prompted him to write it and why he choose…
Where Are We Eating?
Good morning! If you weren’t already bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, then the delicious picture below should wake you up. Does this breakfast of champions look familiar to you? Think you know where we’re eating this week? Leave your best guess in the comments section below…
Get Lit: Jack Bruce: Composing Himself – The Authorized Biography By Harry Shapiro; Interview With The Author
To the casual classic rock fan, Jack Bruce is the guy in Cream who’s not the crazy drummer and not Eric Clapton. But the deeper-track seeker holds the singer/bassist/composer in much higher regard. Mainly for his 45-plus year career careening wildly through many different genres of music – and many…
Cougars Are, At Long Last, A Part Of March Madness Again
I owe Tom Penders and his players an apology. I thought that there was no chance of the Houston Cougars running the table in the C-USA men’s basketball tournament, and thus making the NCAA Tournament. And I wrote such.Boy was I wrong.The Cougars pulled off the expected defeat of ECU…
Rocks Off’s Rodeo Concert Guide: Norteño Knights Grupo Pesado
Date: March 14 Name: Pesado AKA: Grupo Pesado Genre: Norteño Best Known Song(s): “Eso Me Gusta,” “Gracias por Tu Amor,”” Llegó el Amor” Key Demographic: Monterrey represent! Previous HLSR Appearances: 2007 Houston Connections, If Any: Beats the hell out of us. Their damn Web page is in Spanish, of all…
Back To The Future: The Path Of Joe Pug
As the Houston SXSW spillover begins to permeate our bars and clubs, we find ourselves inundated with talent. Sunday, Joe Pug and Horse Feathers set up shop at Mango’s for a show that is sure to quench anyone’s Americana thirst. We first got hipped to Joe Pug while we were…
Rocks Off’s Rodeo Concert Guide: Some Guy Named Blake Shelton
Date: March 13 Name: Blake Shelton AKA: “Drake…Smeldon” Genre: Generi-country Best Known Song(s): “Austin,” “Some Beach,” “Swervin’ in My Lane” Key Demographic: Domestic car aficionados, fellow self-loathing Oklahomans Previous HLSR Appearances: none…
Texas Tech’s Mike Leach Knows How To Fling The F-Word Around
It’s no secret football coaches curse, but now, thanks to the Texas Open Records Act, you get video proof of the artistry involved.The website orangebloods.com filed an Open Records Act request for a video shot by a Texas Tech crew after the Red Raiders barely beat Baylor.Then-coach Mike Leach is…
News On The March, White Stripes, Guitar Shorty – Rocks Off Will Be At Cactus Music All Saturday Afternoon
Just when Rocks Off was wondering how we were going to spend one of our last work-free days before SXSW, Cactus Music’s weekly email circular showed up in our inbox. So now we know: We’re going to be watching music. Shocker, huh? So much for laundry and shit. Here’s what’s…
Leon’s Lounge Needs Some Soul. Brett “Dirty Honey” Koshkin Has The Platters.
Leon’s Lounge, the venerable Midtown throwback dive, is currently closed for renovations as new owner Pete Mitchell (Under the Volcano) gives it a good scrubbing, but it should be back open before too much longer. Maybe as soon as next month. Earlier this week, Rocks Off heard some equally good…
This Week in Deliciousness
Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where every day we get closer and closer to perfecting our bacon-grease ice cream shell. It is only a matter of time. You know it’s going to be a good week when it starts off with an orgy of…
(Very Possibly) Excerpts From The State Board Of Education’s Curriculum Standards For The 2012-13 School Year
There’s been a whole lot of hooting and scorn from a nation who has watched as far-right-wingers have forced their odd, minority political views into Texas textbooks. There are some carping liberal complainers who think — difficult as it may be to believe — that Thomas Jefferson should be mentioned…
Upcoming Events
Saint Patrick’s day is right around the corner. And whether you’re going to drown yourself in a vat of green beer this Saturday or wait like a proper Irish-wannabe until next Wednesday itself for your corned beef and hash fix, we’ve put together a guide to all the best St…
ESPN And CNN In Death-Cage Opinion Brawl Over Yates High School
Yates High School’s basketball team continues its roll to a state championship, a role that’s included some very large blow-outs of over-matched opponentsIt’s attracted nationwide attention, and now two of the biggest brand names on television are getting into it.First came Rick Reilly, writing for ESPN The Magazine about Yates…
Eddie Gordon, 41, Bayou Body Count No. 63
Gunshots in the dead of night. A body slumps to the ground. Somebody must have seen something. Right? That’s what the cops are hoping, as they opened up another murder investigation today. Police say they got a call a little after midnight about gunshots coming from the Luxor Park/Rancho Verde…
The End of Salad Days
My organic garden faces south, and it’s already getting way too much sun. The arugula looked like it was about to bolt, the mustard was too tall, and the chicory needed cutting too. So I just harvested the whole mess of salad greens. The huge pile of lettuce came to…
Listology: Angry Anderson And Hell City Kings’ Other Favorite Front Men
Tonight the Hell City Kings invade the indie confines of Mango’s to celebrate the release of their new seven-inch Wolf EP, with Austin’s White Rhino and locals Shit City High and the Wrong Ones in tow. It’s going to be one of those shows where the doors open at 8…
Wine of the Week: Château La Ragotière
We recently stumbled on the Château de la Ragotière Muscadet Sevre et Maine Sur Lie 2008 in an attempt to find an alternative to our standard Sauvignon Blanc. We wanted something dry and refreshing for under $15, so the wine gurus at Spec’s suggested this Loire Valley white. Being unfamiliar…
HISD’s Breakfast Was Pop Tarts and Animal Crackers
The upcoming cost-savings cutback in hours for cafeteria workers in the Houston ISD brought union leader Orell Fitzsimmons over to two HISD elementaries this week and when he looked in on the actual breakfast being served, he was not amused.”Milk, juice, Pop Tarts and animal crackers!” the field director for…
Late Night Scene: Waffle House
We ventured out to the Waffle House at 11240 Westheimer for some pork products and waffles. There is something about this place that makes it a destination restaurant. We ordered a super “breakfast” with a pecan waffle, sausage, and our hash browns “smothered, covered and scattered.” If you’re not familiar…
The Hot Seat: Pro-Choice, Pro-Flirting, Carolyn Rodriguez Is As Real As It Gets
This past Monday was International Women’s Day, and this week commemorates women and the issues that impact their lives. So it was probably important to get a woman in The Hot Seat. The first lady of Latino hip-hop, Carolyn Rodriguez, seemed like the perfect fit. Last time we saw Carolyn…
FotoFest 2010: “David A. Brown: Trying To Find My Way …”
Photographer David A. Brown has a different way of looking at things. A few months ago, he had an exhibit of photos he’d taken with his camera phone. This month, he’s got an exhibit of new work in FotoFest 2010, “Trying to find my way …” which is made up…
Robb Walsh’s 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #81 Shrimp and Grits at Bistro Alex, Hotel Sorella
Over the course of the next few months, I’m counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in the comments…
Rocks Off’s Rodeo Concert Guide: Toby Keith, Ever The Angry American
Date: March 12 Name: Toby Keith AKA: “Mr. Boot in Your Ass” Genre: [This is our] country Best Known Song(s): “Beer for My Horses,” “How Do You Like Me Now?”, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Ugly Angry American)” Key Demographic: Dick Cheney, ex-boyfriends of Natalie Maines, that…
Stay The Hell Away From The South Loop If You Know What’s Good For You
The West Loop is a disaster area right now. An 18-wheeler has shut it down.From TxDot: EMERGENCY CLOSURE OF IH 610 WEST LOOPAt the request of the City of Bellaire, the Texas Department of Transportation has closed IH 610 West Loop southbound mainlanes and frontage road at Bellaire and is…
Craving Crepes: Melange Creperie Hits the Streets
It’s 10 a.m. The parking lot at Mango’s, the hipster hangout at Westheimer and Taft, is mostly empty as the usual rush of Montrose traffic tumbles past Melange Creperie, the self-contained crepe stand with a distinctive red awning that’s set up shop in one corner of the asphalt lot. Buffalo…
Game Time: The Definitive Sports “How To” Blog Post
In a week that saw me have to write my eulogy to Corey Haim and on the cusp of one of the best sports weeks of the year, I’m going to use this Friday post to breathe easy a little bit and let someone else do the heavy lifting. More…
Hollywood Shuffle: Thunder Soul Director Mark Landsman On His Kashmere Stage Band Documentary
Last week, Hollywood Shuffle told you about a new documentary, Thunder Soul, featuring Houston’s legendary late-’60s/early-’70s funky high schoolers, the Kashmere Stage Band. The director, Mark Landsman, is currently in Austin prepping for the world premier of the movie at SXSW Film. A couple of years ago, Landsman, a film…
Cowboy Tales From The Rodeo: Loving It, Good Days And Bad
Rodeo cowboys basically live on the road, traveling with men and women crazy enough to ride, rope and wrestle live animals for a paycheck. Each day, Hair Balls is asking for a different cowboy to tell us a little bit about himself and his wildest story from a life of…
Aftermath: Brad Paisley, Honorary Houstonian, Keeps His Feet At The Rodeo
In front of what looked liked a Super Nintendo rendition of country life, Brad Paisley put on quite possibly the best performance of RodeoHouston this year. The country singer knows how to bring a crowd to its feet and had no trouble connecting with his fans. Throughout his set list,…
In Ongoing Bat Invasion Of Texas, Terrifying New Theaters Of War Opened
Two weeks ago today, in an nearly all-but-exclusive report, Hair Balls broke the story of the ongoing bat invasion of Texas schools and courthouses.At the time, the winged mammals had seized control of two schools in Clear Lake and one each in Chambers and Matagorda counties. They had also staked…
Aftermath: George Thorogood’s Raucous Rock Party Destroys House of Blues
Since we have long since moved into a digital age of music journalism, Aftermath now takes notes on his cellphone or loads his thoughts onto Twitter. Sifting through our pecking from last night’s George Thorogood and the Destroyers show at the House of Blues, we noticed that we described the…
Ziggy’s Has Parking, And A Pissed-Off Sign About It
Ziggy’s, the popular Montrose restaurant, has been having problems with the city enforcing parking regulations. Ziggy’s owners, and the owner of the land that had been used as a parking lot, got in a dispute that ended up in court. But as the above sign shows, progress has been made…
Ziggy’s Has Parking, And A Pissed-Off Sign About It
Ziggy’s, the popular Montrose restaurant, has been having problems with the city enforcing parking regulations. Ziggy’s owners, and the owner of the land that had been used as a parking lot, got in a dispute that ended up in court. But as the above sign shows, progress has been made…
Dynamo’s Youth Academy Produces Another Signee
On Tuesday, the Houston Dynamo signed the second player from their youth academy. Francisco Navas Cobo was on hand with his family to sign his first professional soccer contract. The young 18-year-old midfielder was shy and almost speechless.”It’s a dream come true,” he managed to say.Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear…
Vegetarian Chili Cheese Hot Dogs
Many of us have given up eating meat for Lent. But for some, it’s easier said than done. A friend of ours who’s been doing very well with sticking to seafood and soy products recently developed a ridiculously strong craving for chili cheese hot dogs. So we offered to try…
Five Spot: Five Obscure UGK Features, With Downloadable Links
Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we’ll examine a recent bit of music news and, albeit sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It’s five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Yo, maybe you heard, maybe you didn’t, but there’s some concerts and whatnot…
Lying, Cheating, And Stealing At Key Middle School, Investigators Say
During the sixth and seventh periods, students at Key Middle School could go to in-school dances, that’s if they had enough cash to get in to the festivities which occurred every week, two weeks or month according to different witness accounts.Even though Houston ISD policy forbids graduation ceremonies for anyone…
Aftermath: David Gray Is For Lovers; Phosphorescent Needs More Stage Time
David Gray is an artist, but not one to be puzzled over. The British singer-songwriter trades in sophisticated pop songs that express simple emotions, as unambiguous as many of their titles: “Be Mine,” “Now and Always,” “The One I Love,” “You’re the World to Me,” “This Year’s Love.” Sensing a…
Coogs Keep March Madness Hopes Alive
The Houston Cougars refuse to die, yesterday upsetting Memphis to advance to the C-USA conference tournament semifinals. The final score was 65-64, which came about because of Aubrey Coleman’s leaning jumper which banked in off the backboard with five seconds remaining.Memphis’s Willie Kemp, trying to get the ball up court…
Trash Theft Auto: Teen Swipes Motorized Shopping Cart From Porter Wal-Mart, Attempts Two-County Odyssey
Evidently Cody Czichos was tired of being at the Porter, Texas Walmart last Monday around midnight. So the 18-year-old sat down on one of Walmart’s motorized shopping carts, revved it up, and pointed it toward home, 35 miles away in Jersey Village. Montgomery County Precinct 4 deputy Ford found Czichos…
Eyeballin: James Brown Cape-Walks Away With The T.A.M.I. Show
Often written about, mythologized, and showing up in clips on rock docs and YouTube, the 1964 concert movie The T.A.M.I. Show has amazingly never been released in uncut format until now. And though it was shot in black and white, the exuberance and energy of the concert overcomes any pigmentation…
Health Dept. Roundup: 77051 to 77055
There were some big offenders this week on Health Department Roundup. We’re not from an area of the country that Jack in the Box has colonized, so we never had the “I don’t care if it’s rotted, I live for this crap” experience that would force us to visit one…
The Battle Over The Wilshire Village Property Goes On
There’s going to be a rally tomorrow by the people who want to turn the old Wilshire Village property in Montrose into a public park. “The rally this weekend is going to take place at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday starting at the Menil Park, then we’ll walk to the property,”…
Seven-Year-Old Nabbed For Weed At HISD School
You knew something like this was gonna happen as soon as Obama was elected: There is a drug epidemic among seven-year-olds. You have to define an epidemic as “one kid,” but still, that seems like one kid more than we would have guessed would be picked up for weed possession…
Amazing Menudo at Pico’s Mex-Mex
Pico’s Mex-Mex in Bellaire sure knows how to throw a hell of an anniversary party. This past Sunday, the beloved Mexican restaurant celebrated 26 years in business by setting up tents and chafing dishes outside and serving at least 100 different classic Mexican dishes for brunch. The crowd of people…
Food Fight: Battle Pad See Ew
Everyone has different standards by which they judge restaurants. Atmosphere, service, price, quality of the food — all items that come into play when weighing restaurants against one another. In that same vein, everyone has a dish by which they judge certain restaurants. Cafeterias are judged by — perhaps –…
Breaking Down The Twilight: Eclipse Trailer
The first trailer for Eclipse, the third film in Stephanie Meyer’s asexual vampire series, “dropped” this morning. At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be much we haven’t already seen in the Twilight movies: a pale, brooding Edward (Robert Pattinson)…an earnest, shirtless Jacob (Taylor Lautner)…and a Bella so indifferent to…
Happy Hour Scene: The Hideout
Rodeo cowboys getting drunk and picking up women is an interesting scene. It doesn’t look like it takes much effort. They just stand there in the same clothes they competed in hours earlier, sometimes with the dirt still on their jeans and boots, with their competition flags pinned to their…
Spermy Night In Georgia: Sexed-Up Songs To Set The Mood For Blowfly
Let’s get one thing perfectly clear: Blowfly is the original dirty rapper. Before anyone in 2 Live Crew was old enough to set foot into a peepshow stall or buy a pack of cigarettes, Clarence “Blowfly” Reid was spewing forth raucous raps like “Spermy Night In Georgia” and “What a…
Face-Recognition Software At A Hotel? What Could Go Wrong?
If you’re classy and rich enough to get your mid-day nookie-on-the-side at the Hilton Americas, be warned: Your face is going into a database.The hotel has announced that it’s installed a security system that uses “facial recognition, license plate recognition and advanced motion analytics.” It doesn’t seem to think this…
W Grill: A New Way to Take Away
Woven among the high-end new restaurants (and glitter-n-glitz bars) on Washington Avenue is the W Grill, a teensy to-go restaurant offering an eclectic mix of foods. While the indoor area has space for the walk-up counter only, there’s a small outdoor deck that’s dotted with picnic tables, which means your…
Same Crap, Different County: Another Small Texas Town Overpunishes Another Piddly Drug Offender
Think 35 years for a brick or so of pot is bad?Try this one on for size… In a case one local defense attorney has said showed “shades of Tulia,” a Bay City man was sentenced to 60 years in prison for possessing 1.3 grams of crack.Melvin Johnson III, 35,…
Rocks Off’s Rodeo Concert Guide: Brad “Not Jake Gyllenhaal” Paisley
Date: March 11 Name: Brad Paisley AKA: “Isn’t That Jake Gyllenhaal?” Genre: Freemason country Best Known Song(s): “Alcohol,” “She’s Everything,” “Ticks,” “Ow, My Back” Key Demographic: Confused Brokeback Mountain fans, people who only eat the vanilla section of Neapolitan ice cream Previous HLSR Appearances: 2001, 2005, 2008-09 Houston Connections, If…
Cowboy Tales From The Rodeo: It’s In The Genes
Rodeo cowboys basically live on the road, traveling with men and women crazy enough to ride, rope and wrestle live animals for a paycheck. Each day, Hair Balls is asking a different cowboy to tell us a little bit about himself and his wildest story from a life of rodeo…
Robb Walsh’s 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #82 Kielbasa on a Sizzling Comal at Polonia, 1900 Blalock
Over the course of the next few months, I’m counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in the comments…
He Said She Said: Did We Shave Our Legs For This? More Cornball Country Comedy
Not all country music has to be about down-and-out truck-driving lifestyles, D-I-V-O-R-C-E, abusive husbands and the dissolution of the American Dream. More than any other genre, country lends itself so nicely to parody and self-satire. The best country music is self-referential, where the artist knows he or she is poking…
Game Time: Nomar Retires And Heads To The Place Ballplayers Go to Die…..ESPN
I’ve worked several places in my lifetime, most of them in the corporate world. Easily, my favorite place I’ve worked is with my current employer, 1560 The Game. After watching Nomar Garciaparra’s feel-good press conference this week where he announced his retirement on the heels of a one-day contract with…
Cocio Mudslides
We all love free samples, right? True, sometimes they make you want to throw that flimsy little toothpick right back at the poor old lady who made you put a gummy piece of “beef” stroganoff in your mouth. But other times, things turn out rather well, and you end up…
Inquiring Minds: Batting Practice With George Thorogood, Bad As He Ever Was
George Thorogood is a funny, talkative fellow. In this week’s print edition, he told us how the Rolling Stones turned him onto the blues, how playing in a strip club helped his band the Delaware Destroyers “claw our way to the middle” and his amusement at how often the familiar…
State Board Of Education Right-Wingers Remove The Word “Capitalism” From Textbooks
If your mind, heart and stomach can stand it, you should be regularly checking in today with the live-blogging of the State Board of Education meeting that the Texas Freedom Network is doing.The board is debating what should and should not be included in social-studies texts, and, as always, things…
Searching for the Perfect Muffin
We were getting a little tired of mediocrity, okay? We’d been in Houston six months and still hadn’t found a muffin that did any better than a B-minus, or maybe a B, depending on how poorly the other idiot pupils graded on the curve. Sure, there are great breakfast spots,…
He Said She Said: “Dear Penis” And Other Country Comedy Classics
Aside from all the epic cheating, drinking and fighting songs country music has given us, one of the best things it does is make us laugh. Apart from all the crying and cussing, there is a whole deal of laughing going on. This year at RodeoHouston, there aren’t many performers…
Corpus Christi Diocese Hit With Priest-Abuse Suit
A Corpus Christi man is suing the Catholic Diocese of Corpus Christi for sexual abuse he says he suffered at the hands of a priest who died in 2008.Identified only as “John Doe,” the plaintiff says Thomas Meaney began abusing him in 1971, when he was 17. Per the lawsuit,…
Kolache Crawl: Czech-Mex at Prasek’s
The moist and spicy chorizo kolache at Prasek’s Smokehouse on I-59 in the little town of Hillje south of El Campo is an outstanding example of Czech-Mex cuisine. It’s also one of the best breakfast kolaches I’ve sampled in a long time. I look forward to trying the jalapeño sausage…
Y’all Musta Forgot: Slim Thug’s Already Platinum
Houston’s history is dotted with albums that, fairly or not, have been swept aside. We’ll examine them here. Have an album that you think nobody knows about but should? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. Slim Thug Already Platinum (Geffen, 2005) Already Platinum was Slim’s official debut album, but more importantly, it was among…
Pop Rocks: Happy Birthday, Chuck Norris
Amidst all the…sincere mourning for the death of Corey Haim (I’m sure you were all huge fans of 2007’s Universal Groove) and renewed brouhaha over AnisBut and their celebrated W Magazine cover (in which the two look like survivors from The Hills Have Eyes), people seem to have forgotten the…
It’s Not Turning Into A Good Month For Metro
If the paper-shredding scandal were not enough … it seems the Metropolitan Transit Authority aka Metro has more problems than it can handle.Remember the rail lines approved by voters in 2003 … yeah that 2003 when Michael Jordan was still playing basketball and YouTube did not exist? Well, seven years…
Rocks Off Exclusive: Hear The Wild Moccasins’ “Skin Collision Past” Right Here
Wednesday night, Rocks Off got our hands on the first fruits of the new Wild Moccasins album, Skin Collision Past. The title track finds the band trying out a new sprawling yet angular sound, with new strains of Britpop coursing throughout the tracks’ three and half minutes. The new full-length…
Coogs Off To Good Start In The C-USA Tournament
Photo courtesy UHThe Houston Cougars won their first game in the C-USA men’s basketball tournament yesterday, defeating ECU 93-80.The game was close for most of the first half, but the Cougars went on a spurt at the end to take the 50-37 halftime lead. The Cougars continued that spurt in…
Idol Beat: Big Mike the Guy To Beat?
Last night’s American Idol, in which the top eight guys performed, felt a lot like the girls’ episode from Tuesday in the way it clearly defined who should stay and who should go, with one singer standing above the rest as the one to beat. Just as Crystal Bowersox is…
The Top 10 Restaurants in the Heights
Creating a top ten list for the Heights is an intimidating process. At a basic level, it’s difficult to even define the Heights. And with so many great restaurants to choose from, we’ve had to leave out popular spots Teotihuacan, Vietnam Restaurant, and Onion Creek for – well — better…
Aftermath: Rascal Flatts At The Rodeo – Oh Hell, What’s The Point?
Aftermath had doubts about Rascal Flatts, whose 2004 hit “God Bless the Broken Road” was the only song we were really familiar with before Wednesday night’s performance at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. But we spent the first part of the week watching videos and listening to their songs,…
American Idol: Big Mike the Guy To Beat?
Last night’s American Idol, in which the top eight guys performed, felt a lot like the girls’ episode from Tuesday in the way it clearly defined who should stay and who should go, with one singer standing above the rest as the one to beat. Just as Crystal Bowersox is…
The Return Of The Aeros’ Hrkac Circus (Yes, Dammit, It Rhymes)
The most shocking moment of the 2008-09 Houston Aeros season involved none of the team’s playoff wins, or its battle to stave off elimination in the AHL Western Conference Finals after falling behind three games to none to the Manitoba Moose in the best-of-seven series. Anyone who watched the team…
Where Are We Peeing? And Looking At Yuppie Real-Estate Porn?
Jesus, this bathroom looks grim. Suspect swatches of toilet paper on the ground. Huge white footprints next to the throne. A copy of 77007 Magazine lying on around like a copy of Yuppie Hustler. How depraved is it to read about Washington Avenue real estate that while you are building…
Canned Curry
After a recent trip to Asia Market, we were curious to try some all-in-one green curry we found there. It had the lime, the bamboo, everything — so we picked up a couple of cans (to the tune of $1.29 apiece) and headed home to attempt dinner. We had chicken…
Five Spring Break Movies To Avoid Like A Mexican Border Town
Next week begins the high point of Spring Break, meaning — when you take into account the early-Friday exits — that today is the last full day for a lot of people.There’s no better way to get ready for Spring Break than by watching Spring Break movies. These can be…
6th Annual Jewish Film Festival: Never Stop Swinging
Julie Cohen’s short film Never Stop Swinging, one of many intriguing works screening during the 6th Annual Jewish Film Festival, shows viewers the story of dancer/choreographer Frankie Manning, a Savoy Ballroom regular back in the 1930s. The legendary Harlem-area Savoy ran an entire New York City block. Plush, classy and…
“Whatever was Splendid: New American Photographs”
The FotoFest Biennial is kind of like photography’s Woodstock – a massive, multifaceted festival of human creativity (minus the mind-altering substances and the mud). This year’s event, taking place at museums, galleries and gathering places across town, features curatorial symposiums, conversations with artists, workshops, lectures and, of course, a number…
Your Lucky Day
2010 Houston Press St. Patrick’s Day Guide This year, St. Paddy’s Day falls on a Wednesday — three days after the start of Daylight Saving Time. Between the lost hour and the midweek slump, it couldn’t hurt to visit your favorite restaurants and bars for some shepherd’s pie and a…
The Debutante Girl
Artistic Director Josh Jordan wears many hats at the Red Door Theatre Company, the new company that opened its doors in a refurbished transmission shop in Pasadena just last August. Because securing rights to published plays is so expensive, Jordan has written all three shows the company has produced. And…
Fault Lines
Horse Head Theatre Company’s a big tease. Their productions come few and far between, which makes each one special and eagerly awaited. The company’s latest is Stephen Belber’s Fault Lines, a suspenseful buddy drama in which a loudmouthed stranger barges into a birthday party being shared by two buddies. His…
The Boondock Saints 10th Anniversary
It’s not exactly all shamrocks and leprechauns, but The Boondock Saints 10th Anniversary screening today is definitely an early Saint Patrick’s Day treat (if by treat you mean a violent, mayhem-filled film classic). The flick will be broadcast via CineCast into movie theaters across the nation, including several in the…
Houston Press St. Patty’s Day Ballyhoo Bash
You don’t have to wait until after dark to start your St. Patrick’s Day partying. For the Houston Press’s St. Patty’s Day Ballyhoo Bash, we’re throwing the doors open at 4 p.m. (is that early enough for you?). Music comes courtesy of Come See My Dead Person and Dave Wrangler,…
Linda Fairstein: Hell Gate
Spend your St. Patrick’s Day with the former head of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Sex Crimes Unit, author Linda Fairstein. In her latest novel, Hell Gate, Fairstein again features protagonist Alexandra Cooper, taking the investigator to a seedy side of New York – one where women being bought and sold…
13th Annual Irish Stew, Chili and Chicken Cook-
Join in for the 13th Annual Irish Stew, Chili and Chicken Cook-off from noon to 7 p.m. Each team will consist of six cooks. Check-in is between 9 and 11 a.m. Each team will supply everything they may need, including propane, and prepare the food at Griff’s after check-in, including…
Beer, Boobs, Babes, and Balls
Griff’s will be holding a greater-Houston-area Irish open golf tournament, better known as Beer, Boobs, Babes, and Balls, beginning at noon for tee time with a shotgun start. There will be trophies and prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places as well as special prizes for Closest to Hole and…
The 51st Annual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade
A Houston tradition, the 51st annual Houston St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be presented by the Houston St. Patrick’s Parade Commission. The two-hour event has historically been one of the largest parades of its kind in the U.S. and plans to include 127 entries to delight the Irish and Irish-at-heart…
Sham’rock’ Party
The pub will be holding a Sham’rock’ Party where patrons will be wearing green and drinking green beer. DJ Allan will be playing from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. for your dancing pleasure, and rumor has it there may be a visit from some Jager girls with a shot block…
Houston’s Biggest St. Patrick’s Day Party
Lucky’s Pub, with more than 80,000 square feet of festival space, is claiming the rights to Houston’s Biggest St. Patrick’s Day Party in EADO. With three stages, 10 bands, four DJs and no cover, the party will open at 6 a.m. with breakfast served till 10 a.m. (including, of course,…
“Eileen Maxson: Orphans of Failure”
Eileen Maxson remembers the ’90s in “Orphans of Failure.” The exhibit features images salvaged, or made to look salvaged, from 1993 Ñ a year whose calendar, Maxson explains, mirrors the days and dates of 2010’s calendar. “My Quantum Leap, Back to the Future fandom is saying that this is a…
Hairspray
Cult filmmaker John Waters’s Hairspray has seen a few incarnations: a 1988 film starring Ricki Lake and Divine, a 2002 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical and a 2007 film remake with Nikki Blonsky and John Travolta. The Broadway musical is on tour and sweeping through Texas. The ’60s songfest is about…
“Tim Johnson: Language of Bones”
Houston-based artist Tim Johnson probably has paint running through his veins: His mother was a realist painter, his grandmother was an impressionist painter and a host of other family members were artists. A collection of Johnson’s own creations is on display at Obsidian Gallery in the exhibition “Tim Johnson: Language…
False Prophet
Agreeing at the insistence of a Corsican mob boss to suck and then slash a fellow inmate, newly jailed Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) —poor, illiterate, a “dirty Arab” in the prison’s racist pecking order — gets what’s coming to him, but in a good way. Indeed, crime pays in…
Joe Pug
At only 25 years old, Chicago singer-songwriter Joe Pug has the lyrical chops of a man twice his age and just as much grit…if not more. With this winter’s Messenger, Pug jumps out of the staid strummer pack with self-damning lines like “I undressed somebody’s daughter, then complained about her…
Dogfighting Bust Whimpers Out
CRIME, COURTS Dogfighting Bust Whimpers Out Light sentences result from much-publicized arrests By Craig Malisow The majority of Harris County dogfighters charged after a massive 2008 undercover investigation were given deferred adjudication, served as little as two days in jail, had their charges dropped, or were never arrested. Nearly 200…
Cymbals Eat Guitars
Have the students become the teachers? Cymbals Eat Guitars, originally a Weezer cover band in their native Staten Island, have dramatically shifted their stride since relocating to Brooklyn, where they were named “Best New Brooklyn Band” in Houston Press sister paper The Village Voice’s annual “Best Of” issue. CEG’s sonic…
The Art of Cool
Walking into “Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool” at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is like walking into a 1970s casting call for a Shaft sequel. Hendricks’s portraits of primarily African-American urbanites from that period are packed with great, now campy, imagery. To contemporary eyes, his canvases are loaded…
Nightfly: Hard to Kill
Neidre Wilson is an audiologist, but at the moment she’s not dressed like one. She’s dressed like a stripper, and her corset teddy and fishnet pantyhose are doing their very best not to move an inch in either direction while she talks. “I usually hang out on Washington,” says Wilson,…
Hell City Kings/Poor Dumb Bastards
Leave it to two of Houston’s biggest punk-rock troublemakers to seed the weekend before SXSW with a pair of switchblade CD releases, each packing a Texas-size helping of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Friday at Mango’s, Hell City Kings unveil their new Wolf EP, their first recording since new…
Chatter: Long Ball
George Thorogood sure knows how to butter up an interviewer. Before we can even get a question out, the Delaware native — who was a semipro ballplayer before crafting ’80s blooze-rock staples “Bad to the Bone” and “Born to Be Bad” — is off and running about how much he…
Capsule Art Reviews: “2010 School of Art Annual Student Exhibition,” “Maurizio Cattelan”
“2010 School of Art Annual Student Exhibition” Student shows are an inherently mixed bag, but they are also a great place to find developing artists doing interesting things. With works that range from the gutsy to the polished to the absurd, the University of Houston’s “2010 School of Art Annual…
Incoming: Fairness for Victims
Fairness for Victims Online readers respond to “Victims’ Wrongs,” by Chris Vogel, February 23: No communication: As the victims of a capital murder case, we never had to deal with plea bargaining as an issue. But in 20 years of the appellate process, we have never been directly contacted to…
Dick Dale
In the big picture of rock and roll guitar players, Dick Dale ranks with giants like Les Paul, Link Wray and Nokie Edwards. One of the prize warhorses in Fender’s stable for decades and the first artist to play through a 100-watt amplifier (the Showman amp became a Fender flagship),…
Phosphorescent
Think you know all there is to know about Willie Nelson? Even if you own all 200-something of his albums — something even Shotgun himself likely can’t claim — no Nelson discography is complete without Phosphorescent’s 2009 LP To Willie (Dead Oceans). Mining the venerable outlaw’s back pages for songs…
Nebula
Current bands like the Buffalo Killers, Rose Hill Drive and the Sword are putting their own modern twists on balls-to-the-wall, no-girls-allowed ’70s-style hard rock. But L.A. power trio Nebula’s take is more cosmic than Conan, though the swirling guitar and consciousness-expanding vocals of Eddie Glass are still forceful enough to…
Stirred and Shaken: Roeder’s Pub’s Dragon-Ass
What would you do in this situation? You’re with a small group, doing some weeknight drinking on the patio of a neighborhood everybar — in this case, Roeder’s Pub (3116 S. Shepherd, 713-524-4994). You’re waiting to hear a selection on the jukebox — specifically, you want to introduce a friend…
Dead Confederate
Athens, Georgia, outfit Dead Confederate is definitely down with the Southern rock, but they’re also far more into Neil Young than Lynyrd Skynyrd ever was. Neil and Crazy Horse’s epic, stomping cosmic-rock jams provide a launching pad for Dead Confederate’s compelling attack, but so does the atmospheric psych-Americana of My…
Ask a Mexican: “Cheddar” and the Doors
Dear Mexican, When I was in high school, everyone called the Mexican students like myself “cheddars.” I’m not sure where this originated from, or what it really has to do with Mexican culture. When I have asked other Mexicans what this means, they are not sure, either. “Cheddar packing” is…
American Man
Much about Chuck Prophet is upside down. He’s a rocker who does interviews in the morning. He thinks Golden Globe and Oscar winner Crazy Heart would have been more realistic if, instead of Jeff Bridges, Dwight Yoakam had played Bad Blake. And he feels sorry for artists on independent labels…
Dish: Mancuso’s Italian Table
Why did Jerry Mancuso open Mancuso’s Italian Table (2231 S. Voss, 713-953-9090)? He answers the question with a question: “Don’t all Italians have to go into the restaurant business?” The Mancuso family emigrated from Sicily in the 1800s, first landing in New Orleans, then Galveston, then Houston. This is Jerry’s…
Capsule Stage Reviews: The Flu Season, Machinal, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, The Women
The Flu Season We got our first savory taste of writer extraordinaire Will Eno last year with Nova Arts Project’s Thom Paine: Based on Nothing, a searing, angst-filled monologue that seemed to peer directly into our souls, whether we wanted it to or not. Now Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company is…
Music Cities
In March, the most loved and feared four-letter word in Texas is SXSW. What started as a way to drum up some business for Austin’s bars and taverns while the University of Texas student population was elsewhere on spring break has become the worldwide music business’ springtime playpen of choice,…
Mission Finally Accomplished
Better late than never — a bang-bang pulse-pounder predicated on the Bush administration’s deliberate fabrication of WMDs in Iraq. Paul Greengrass’s expertly assembled Green Zone has evidently been parked for some time on Universal’s shelf. Had the movie been released during the 2008 election season, it might have been something…
Hot Plate: Shah Cuisine at Basil Grill
The appetizer sampler ($12) at Basil Grill (7952 Westheimer, 713-782-2745) is the perfect way to explore the wonders of Persian cuisine at this new, family-run restaurant. It comes with four appetizers picked by the chef. The exquisite borani is steamed spinach mixed with yogurt and garlic. The baba ghanoush is…
Solid State: Houston’s SXSW Class of ’10
One of the most diverse cities in the U.S., if not the world, Houston is sending a delegation to SXSW that resembles its hometown more than ever. This year more than 20 Houston acts were officially accepted, and many more will head to Austin to play one (or several) of…
Meatball on 34th Street
Spaghetti “Works” at Doyle’s on 34th Street near T.C. Jester is a heaping pile of spaghetti with the restaurant’s Sicilian-style meat and mushroom sugo ladled over the top. Two humongous meatballs perch on the summit of spaghetti. Then comes a topping of melted mozzarella cheese. It is the kind of…
