Descent into Madness: The Dale Robertson Story
Houstonians who put up with the only sports section in town have long admired the skills of Chronicle columnist Dale Robertson. In a town where front-running is an art, where bandwagons are jumped on and abandoned with all the speed and skill of Tom Cruise making the helicopter-to-train leap in…
Insider
Mixed Returns GOP conservative activist Steven Hotze enjoyed one of his strongest primary seasons in years, as a group of incumbent GOP judges targeted for removal by Hotze bit the dust. But Hotze’s mother Margaret suffered a surprising defeat at the family’s home precinct convention when a group of moderates…
Waiting for Get Done
When Ace Tin and Sheet Metal Works, Inc. got a contract in 1996 to replace the siding at Miller Outdoor Theatre, Kathy Highsmith was thrilled. The job would give the small family business, founded by her grandfather in 1928, its biggest boost since Highsmith’s dad had retired five years earlier…
Geezer Follies
The Houston Rockets’ season that began with Charles Barkley tossing a 110-pound guy through a barroom window has now reached the point where Hakeem Olajuwon talks of losing a battle with Satan. In boxing, that’s known as going up in class. In the NBA, it’s more likely indicative of a…
Night & Day
Thursday March 19 Who among us — out on an evening stroll, say — hasn’t had the sort of pedestrian encounter with mortality portrayed with such aching, indelible beauty in the traveling exhibit “Small Deaths: Kate Breakey”? Still, there’s nothing prosaic about these works by the University of Texas at…
River Oaks Runs Through It
Here’s a pop quiz for all you young Houston debutantes and gentlemen: If your father gave you a million-dollar trust fund, what would you do with it? Houston native Tessa Blake took her patrimony and used it to make a documentary about her father, 87-year-old Houston lawyer and businessman Thomas…
Beer Haul
Everything’s bigger in Texas — even the microbrewery. But while Texans and beer have always gone together like cowboys and beans, we world-champeen suds swillers have mostly been under the thumb of foreign interests in Golden, Colorado, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Sure, we kept chuggin’ those undistinguished imports ’til we couldn’t…
Hot Plate
Mystery surrounds the black bean soup at Cafe Miami (6114 Bissonnet, 772-3042). One person I talked to there said it contained garlic and onions. But another disagreed. What made the soup special, he insisted, was cilantro and bay leaves. I myself thought I tasted sherry and lime juice. Who knows?…
Dish
He Shoots! He Scores! Should Charles Barkley retire at the end of the season — as he has hinted that he might — how is the basketball star going to fill his time? Barkley has said that he might seek public office. But if, for any reason, that doesn’t work…
Choke, Hit, Bash, Cha-Cha-Cha
By a quarter to nine that Saturday, they were at the gym, waiting to see the doctor. They stood with their arms crossed, not speaking. At least half of them had shaved their heads. One man wore a picture of Bruce Lee on his shirt and the words “Seek and…
Funk Revival
It’s easy to forget now just how huge Grand Funk Railroad was during its ’70s heyday. Critics may have dismissed the band’s brand of meat-and-potatoes hard rock, seeing it as nothing more than soundtrack fodder for suburban-basement bong blowouts. But countless sold-out stadiums and ten consecutive platinum releases speak otherwise…
Letters
Excellent Journalism Congratulations to the Houston Press and especially Bob Burtman for the article on the Cedar Point Industrial Landfill proposed to be sited near Trinity Bay at Beach City [“Waste Not, Want Not,” March 12]. His article is factual, interesting and a tribute to excellence in journalism. I spent…
Sparking Interest
When David Rice finally got down to work recording greenelectric, his debut CD for Columbia Records, he couldn’t have been farther from his element. Stowed away in the converted remains of an old grain mill in the rolling countryside outside of Bath, England, the Houston-raised singer/guitarist was so far removed…
Japan’s Tough Guy
Takeshi Kitano, the reigning Renaissance man of Japanese pop culture, is a scriptwriter, movie actor and director and the star of seven TV shows. He produces six different columns for national magazines and, it says here, has written 55 books. In his spare time, he makes outrageous public pronouncements. And…
Static
Hole lotta litigation… It’s become mighty tempting to assume that Houston’s Manhole doesn’t exist anyplace but in court documents. After all, the female-led metal/sludge outfit has seen more action in front of a judge than before paying audiences over the last year. First and foremost has been the band’s ongoing…
Clinton Without Contrasts
If ever there was an op-ed movie — a movie destined to be written about in an “elevated” realm beyond just the movie pages — it’s Primary Colors. Thanks to Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones, the Hollywood/Washington nexus has lifted this new Mike Nichols picture, based on the 1996 bestseller…
Rotation
Van Halen Van Halen III Warner Bros. The loss of a charismatic frontman usually spells trouble for any band, but resilient pop-metal veterans Van Halen seem to have turned that maxim on its ear. Having weathered both the showy, cock-rock posturing of David Lee Roth and the earnest wailing of…
Women on the Brink
Though critics of her era often compared Virginia Woolf’s nonlinear, almost cubist narratives to the then-burgeoning cinema’s use of montage, close-ups, flashbacks, tracking shots and rapid cuts, the strength of Woolf’s novels lies in the rhythm of her arresting style, and in her heroines’ poignant and melancholic musings. While necessarily…
Tough Customer
Her phrasing is reminiscent of Billie Holiday; her deep range brings to mind Sarah Vaughn. She’s won several awards and made classic contributions to the history of jazz, including a universally acclaimed duet release with Ray Charles. But perhaps what stands out most about Betty Carter — aside from her…
Take the Cash and Talk That Trash
Welcome to the smoky rooms and overheated corridors of Hotel Six, where the closed-circuit television picks up excellent deception, the air crackles with currents of duplicity and the concierge thoughtfully leaves the bugs on all night to record guests’ every utterance. It’s not the sort of place you’d want to…
Cher Thing
There are now two Zydeco diners — one on Pease, the other on Travis — and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s not nearly enough. In a perfect world, there’d be dozens of Zydecos — one of them right across the street from my house. You won’t find fine dining…
Absolutely for Sale
The ad said to just do it, so the Art Guys did. According to Advertising Age, “consumers are living inside a perpetual marketing event.” The Art Guys, going those consumers one better, are becoming a perpetual marketing event. Like any number of neo-celebrities, these two longtime Houston artists are building…