Hilton Pool Electrocution Death Case Reaches Settlement
A part of the lawsuit over a Houston man’s electrocution death at the Westchase Hilton last August has been settled. The family of Raul Hernandez is still struggling to cope in the wake of his death last August. Hernandez, 27, jumped into a pool to rescue his younger brother and…
Controversial Pet Law Wins Approval
If you’ve been procrastinating getting your pet chipped or licensed, now’s the time to hop to it. The Houston city council today approved an amendment that eliminates a 30-day hold for prior pet owners before the city can get ownership of your lost or stray pet. Life and death decisions…
Galveston Bay Oil Spill: A Lesson In a Series of Lessons
Mark Twain’s declaration that “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme” is an appropriate and memorable reminder in the wake of the March 24, Galveston Bay oil spill. It’s one more prompt that environmental abuses, whether by negligence, human error, or political gain, need our attention now. Not only…
Schoolboy Q at Warehouse Live, 3/25/2014
Schoolboy Q, Isaiah Rashad, Vince Staples, Audio Push, DJ Mr. Rogers Warehouse Live March 25, 2014 Tuesday night, Warehouse Live rapidly swelled to shoulder-to-shoulder tightness as the seemingly infinite line wrapping the exterior of the building began to file inside, as Schoolboy Q’s “Oxymoron” tour made landfall here in Houston…
Reality Bites: The Real World: Ex-Plosion
There are a million reality shows on the naked television. We’re going to watch them all, one at a time. There’s a scene in this episode of MTV’s The Real World: Ex-Plosion where — after a Festivus-like airing of grievances — two of the characters (I’ll call them “Mook Skywalker”…
Incredible Rescue Video From The Montrose Fire
I’m a sports talk show host and, in this space at least, a sports writer. I live in a sports cocoon almost 24 hours a day. Certainly, the importance sports takes on is disproportionate in my world, and I think at the end of the day, it’s probably disproportionate “out…
Top 5 Sodas to Try From Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop
To say that the drink selection at Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop in Rice Village is “overwhelming” is definitely an understatement. The store is like the Spec’s for carbonated beverage aficionados, so be prepared to wander around in a partial daze as you take in the hundreds of…
Officials Searching For Cause of Wednesday’s Inferno
Harris Fire Department investigators are still working to find the cause of a five-alarm fire that decimated a Montrose apartment complex Tuesday. With 70 units and nearly 200 people responding to the scene at West Dallas and Marconi, it was one of the largest fire campaigns in the last decade,…
Answering the Questions: A Handy Guide to the Band Tool in 2014
A. INTRODUCTION You’ve probably read online that Tool is touring again (and was in fact in Houston Tuesday night), and if you’re like most music fans you probably have a lot of questions. According to the rules of rock, bands only tour for a handful of reasons, and since you…
This Week In Food Blogs: You Can Make Pâté From Lentils
Eater Houston: Coltivare, the new Heights restaurant from Morgan Weber and Ryan Pera of Revival Market, now has a cocktail menu after receiving its liquor license. Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen shares the new menu and explains that it “weighs heavily on Italian apertivos and digestivos.” Sip on a Nardini Crusta…
Communicating Doors at the Alley Puts Two Women at the Center of a Science Fiction Thriller Comedy
It’s the year 2024 and Phoebe walks through the wrong hotel door and into a world of danger. She meets another woman, Ruella, and together they try to stop someone being killed, as they flip back and forth through time. Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd who describes the comedy…
Tool at Toyota Center, 3/25/2014
Tool, Failure Toyota Center March 25, 2014 Among perhaps the shyest Grammy winners in history, Tool has a history of avoiding the spotlight for as long as possible, even onstage. It’s been eight years since the band released its last heavy, psychedelic opus, 10,000 Days, and a solid Olympiad since…
Sherie Rene Scott’s All Will Be Well – The Piece of Meat Studio Sessions is Affective and Evocative
Acclaimed musical theatre actress Sherie Rene Scott blew New York City audiences away when she debuted her cabaret concert Piece of Meat at 54 BELOW last year. Using songs from the show, which was about the struggle between enlightenment and animal desires, she has rearranged and reimagined the experience for…
Houston Dog Attack Victim’s Dad Speaks Out
Jeff Mack got up before the Houston city council yesterday and seemed ready to break out into tears. The police veteran told the story of how his daughter’s daily jog turned into a headline-grabbing pit bill attack. More importantly, he said he wanted to see people with vicious animals pay…
Plucky Eating: Buffalo Wing Bar at Kroger
I’m a latecomer to the world of buffalo wings. I didn’t grow up eating them (in fact, there was a definite period in my youth during which I thought some sort of winged buffalo creature actually existed), and my initial wing experiences in early adulthood were unfortunately at lackluster chain…
Inaugural Menu of Menus Pop-Up Dinner Brings Together Great Chefs and Great Food
Last night, Randy Evans of Haven welcomed Kevin Naderi of Roost and Kevin Bryant of Eleven XI to his restaurant for a one-night-only dinner prepared by the three chefs in honor of Menu of Menus. The pop-up dinner consisted of four passed hors d’oeuvres followed by four courses and either…
Are Ghosts to Blame for Montrose Blaze?
Could ghosts have started yesterday’s huge fire that destroyed a $50-million apartment complex in Montrose? As KHOU reported earlier this week, the construction was obnoxiously close to the Magnolia Cemetery. Blame the lack of setbacks on some of these apartment complexes going up in the area. The cemetery was damaged…
Vegan with a Vengeance: Pizza
We’ll get it out of the way right now: I’m being a bit loose in my veganism. I’m not eating any animals, dairy products, or eggs, but I’m not strictly avoiding sugar, nor actively eschewing honey. Call me a bad vegan. That’s fine, because I’m not actually a vegan, I…
The Rock is All Man in the New Trailer for Hercules
Sometimes someone shows you an idea on paper. You look at it, scratch your goatee, and you think that the idea is ludicrous. Still, to be polite, you smile and say, “We’ll see how that turns out.” Time passes, and now this someone shows you the same idea as a…
Texans Head Coach Bill O’Brien Speaks … And Speaks, And Speaks Some More
We all know Houston Texans’ head coach Bill O’Brien is one of the many branches off of the Bill Belichick tree. To call him a Belichick disciple might be overstating things, as O’Brien likely seeks to carve out his own style. But no doubt, along the way, O’Brien has and…
100 Creatives 2014: Theresa DiMenno, Butterfly Photographer
What She Does: If you’ve ever found yourself wandering the halls of Methodist Hospital then you might have been calmed by the beautiful nature photographs of Theresa DiMenno. Such soothing images are just a part of what makes her a well-respected and oft-seen photographic artist in Houston, but if you…
Fabulous Restaurants Added to the Menu of Menus Lineup with Two Weeks to Go
The 12th annual Menu of Menus food and wine extravaganza is coming up, on April 8, and we’re more excited than ever about the wonderful restaurants that have committed to attending and serving samples of their delicious food. You wanted Korean food, and you got it! Nara will be joining…
Kevin Love’s Match.com Video For Good NBA Teams (Like The Rockets)
Let’s preface this post by saying that I shed no tears for Kevin Love. The Minnesota Timberwolves’ fifth year power forward is highly compensated for his services (over $14 million this season), lives a very comfortable life, and for a guy who has never led his team to even a…
Famous Designers Born and Raised in the Lone Star State
New York and Los Angeles may have a lock on the fashion industry in America, but they do not have the monopoly on designers (or fashion staples for that matter). Texas has produced some of the most successful designers to date and, while some may have moved out of state,…
100 Favorite Dishes 2013-2014: No. 5, Brisket at Killen’s Barbecue
This year, leading up to our annual Menu of Menus® issue, Kaitlin Steinberg counts down her 100 favorite dishes as she eats her way through Houston. She’ll compile a collection of the dishes she thinks are the most awesome, most creative and, of course, most delicious in town. It’s a…
Five Ways to Make Metallica Good Again
Last week, Metallica debuted a new song live and then posted its demo recording online. The song’s called “Lords of Summer,” and releasing the demo was a pretty smart move. This way we can actually hear what’s going on in it without having to try to make out awful live…
Dirty Dancing’s Eric Carmen: “I Wanted to Find Where the Magic Was”
Very few articles about Eric Carmen (including, sadly, this one) do not include the term “power pop” somewhere to describe the music he’s made with the Raspberries and in his lengthy solo career. But according to the singer/guitarist, if you gotta have a musical label, you could do much worse…
25 Shows In Houston You Should See This Spring
Waxahatchee Mango’s, April 4 Right now acoustic folk is a sleeping giant within the music industry, but Katie Crutchfield (who works under the stage name Waxahatchee) is one name to have on your radar. If you’re a fan of acts like Screaming Females, Hop Along and Laura Stevenson, you’ll likely…
City Council to Vote Wednesday on Controversial Pet Law
The Houston City Council is scheduled to vote tomorrow on an ordinance dictating when the city may take possession of animals that wind up in the city pound. Currently, the law provides a 30-day period for a prior owner to reclaim a pet, even if it’s been adopted. Many in…
Breaking News (Updated): Apocalyptic Fire Ravaging Montrose Apartment Complex (w/ Video)
Check out our slideshow of the fire. Update:The Houston Fire Department declared the fire under control at 2:56 p.m. They say all the construction workers were accounted for and there were no injuries reported. Update 2:32 p.m.: We talked to eyewitness Kim Cortez who works in the Wortham Tower across…
The New X-Men Movie Looks Like A Three-Hanky Picture
The second trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past, the follow-up to 2011’s First Class, “dropped” yesterday, as they say. This one reveals a good deal more about mutantkind’s unpleasant future, as well as some damned spiffy Nixon era duds. Oh, and crying. Lots of crying. And why’s that? Because…
Cruise Ship Could Test Oily Waters in Houston Channel, Says Coast Guard
The Houston Ship Channel is looking a tad busier in the fourth day since a collision spilled close to 170,000 gallons of oil into Galveston Bay. This morning the ship channel opened to barge traffic, but full use is still a no-go. According to Lt. Sam Danus of the U.S…
Get Your Breakfast and Treats at Forest Cafe & Bakery in The Woodlands
When you travel to The Woodlands/Conroe area, you are probably heading up north for a few reasons: 1) To see a concert at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion 2) To shop at The Woodlands Mall and Market Street or 3) To eat at one of the Waterway restaurants or newly…
5 Famous Video Game Laughs (That Are Just Other Remixed Laughs)
I remember being in elementary school playing Altered Beasts and being impossibly impressed when the game managed to open with Zeus actually talking to your character. Granted, “Rise from your grave” came out more “Wize Fromage Gay”, but compared to what we had before that was a serious step forward…
It’s National Donate Life Month, Yo!
Courtesy Donate Life TexasHey baby, want some of my organ….?We must admit that we snicker anytime we hear the phrase “organ donation,” but it’s really no laughing matter. Every day, 75 people throughout the country are saved through donation, according to Donate Life Texas. That’s the good news. But here’s…
Review: A Happy Accident Leads Saint Arnold To Create A Great New Summer Beer
If you’re a local beer lover, there’s no doubt you’re familiar with Saint Arnold, the granddaddy of Houston’s craft beer scene, and you might have already heard a bit of the story behind the creation of their newest beer, Boiler Room. A boiler-room mistake (hence the name) meant a batch…
Where to Find a Proper White Pizza In Houston
It took a recent trip home to New Jersey to remind me how much I love white pizza. And not the kind that is just mozzarella cheese without tomatoes, or even worse, the kind made with alfredo sauce. I’m talking about real New-York-style white pizza made with the pièce de…
Cher at Toyota Center, 3/24/2014
Cher, Pat Benatar & Neil Geraldo Toyota Center March 24, 2014 “All right, well, this is the beginning of the magical mystery circus…” Monday night, Cher took the stage at Toyota Center on her second stop on the “Dressed to Kill” final farewell tour. It really will be a shame…
Lucia di Lammermoor at Opera in the Heights: Love, Hate and Madness
Lucia, the character at the center of Donizetti’s tragedy Lucia di Lammermoor, is wonderful mixture of intense love, savage hate and, in the end, a dramatic descent into madness. (No, that’s actually not a spoiler — look at the poster for the Opera in the Heights production below. It shows…
HPD Review Video of Suspect in Pregnant Woman Slaying at Strip Club
A pregnant woman was killed by robbers while working her cleaning job at the Eclipse Gentlemen’s in Houston, police say. Maria Lucrecia, 27, was pronounced dead at the notorious club on South Gessner Road around 5:25 p.m. on Saturday. To make matters utterly worse (like they could be really be…
The Rocks Off 200: Santos Pastrana, Sound Engineer and DJ Ninja
Welcome to The Rocks Off 200, our portrait gallery of the most compelling profiles and personalities in the far-flung Houston music community — a lot more than just musicians, but of course they’re in there too. See previous entries in the Rocks Off 100 at this link. Who? Santos Pastrana…
Awkward March Madness Moment: Greg Gumbel Gets Confused Over the Miller Bros, Promptly Ejects (w/ VIDEO)
Man, what a weekend of college basketball! We saw one for the ages between Wichita State and Kentucky on Sunday afternoon, we saw the death of the Big East as we know it with their top two teams going down to a 7 seed and a 6 seed, and we…
100 Favorite Dishes 2013-2014: No. 6, Aji de Gallina at Latin Bites
This year, leading up to our annual Menu of Menus® issue, Kaitlin Steinberg counts down her 100 favorite dishes as she eats her way through Houston. She’ll compile a collection of the dishes she thinks are the most awesome, most creative and, of course, most delicious in town. It’s a…
Pop Rocks: Patrick Stewart Should Be Everyone’s Favorite Movie Star
Gene Hackman. Denzel Washington. Tom Hanks. Bill Murray. Some of my favorite movie stars are in that list for good reason. Hackman, a wonderfully brutal character actor, was Bob Knight with a heart in Hoosiers. Denzel Washington was Malcolm X. Tom Hanks is, well, Tom Hanks and Bill Murray delivered…
Ellie Goulding at Bayou Music Center, 3/24/2014
Ellie Goulding, Conway Bayou Music Center March 24, 2014 When it comes to musical artists, labels are a tricky thing. Critics and fans like them because they help slot performers into easily recognizable tropes, shorthand we can use to explain someone without really explaining them. They’re not necessarily lazy, but…
Avocado Love: Three Things That Are Not Guacamole
Lifetime Houstonians may not know what a luxury it is to have year-round access to avocados. Three short weeks was long enough for me to learn that there is only so much guacamole one person can eat. With five avocados still ripening in my kitchen, I thought there just had…
The Johnny Manziel Dunk Show (w/ VIDEO)
When Central Florida quarterback Blake Bortles conducted his Pro Day last week in Orlando for virtually every NFL team, it was on the heels of Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater’s less than stellar Pro Day the week before. So when Bortles went out and tore it up (he was reportedly pretty…
The Best Comics in March Part 2: Loki is Awesome and Buffy Doesn’t Suck Anymore
Each month the staff at 8th Dimension Comics picks out the best book to review. Click here for Part 1. American Vampire: Second Cycle #1: If there’s any genre harder to make a mark in these days than zombie fiction it’s vampires. Trust Scott Snyder to accomplish it. His first…
Voice Daily Deal: Final Day for Special-Price Tickets to Menu of Menus® Extravaganza
Today is the last day to purchase reduced-price tickets for the 12th annual Menu of Menus® Extravaganza. This special deal will end at midnight tonight, so act fast. The Houston Press Menu of Menus® Extravaganza takes place at Silver Street Station on Tuesday, April 8, from 7 p.m. until 10…
UPDATE: Galveston Bay Spill is Killing Spring Migration
UPDATE:A representative with the Joint Incident Command confirmed that biologists with Texas Parks and Wildlife and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have picked up eight oiled birds and 10 dead ones. The oiled birds found alive have been taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center. Crews are working to clean up…
Movies with Recently Deceased Actors: A Weird and Wonderful Thing
Last week, the second trailer for the soon-to-be released film Brick Mansions hit the intertubes. It appears to be your typical cop/revenge action flick, probably a lot of mindless fun. What the big to do about this generic film is that it stars the late Paul Walker. Walker, of Fast…
The Walmart Toe Sucker: A Musical Search for Answers
I know I’m not a cynic because the strange-but-true news stories involving our species still sometimes shock me. Even after all these years, I rarely ho-hum something like this. Or this. Or, especially this. So when I read the tale of Michael A. Brown I naturally had questions. You may…
Upcoming: Counting Crows, Brad Paisley, Ben Folds, Jimmy Eat World, Tom Jones, Yes, etc.
The 2014 Country Megaticket feat. Brad Paisley: With Randy Houser, Leah Turner, Charlie Worsham, Sat., September 6, 7 p.m., $144.50 to $650. Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins Dr., Spring, 281-363-3300. The 2014 Country Megaticket feat. Jason Aldean: With Florida Georgia Line, Tyler Farr, Thu., October 23, 7:30 p.m.,…
Heaven Needed a Scumdog: Remembering GWAR’s Dave Brockie
If you never caught a GWAR show in the band’s improbable 30-year reign, your failure is now officially complete. Dave Brockie, the often-hilarious, always-obscene front-thing better known to fans as Oderus Urungus, returned to the stars from whence he came early Sunday morning. He was 50. Though a slew of…
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Has Largest 20-Day Record
Despite the strange weather we’ve been seeing, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo did pretty darn good this year. First, the overall attendance hit 2,485,721 visitors. Rodeo officials won’t be able to look back on 2014 as the biggest attendance year ever — that distinction belongs to 2013 when there…
Green Says He’s Backing Law to Protect LGBT Workers, But Not Ready to Sign
A move to speed up legislation to ban LGBT workplace discrimination is being spearheaded through a letter last week urging President Barack Obama to issue an executive order. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has been gaining bipartisan support since last year when it passed the Senate. Our local representative Gene…
Join Us for the Inaugural Menu of Menus Pop-Up Dinner Tomorrow (Few Tickets Left!)
We’re told that there are only about ten tickets left for our first-ever Menu of Menus Pop-Up Dinner Tuesday evening at Haven, so get ’em while you still can! The dinner, which begins at 9 p.m. (leave the kiddos at home), will feature food from Haven chef Randy Evans, Roost…
How Much More Can The Woodlands Keep Growing?
It’s no surprise to the 108,000 people who live there already, but The Woodlands is growing … and keeps growing. For some purists who love to see the wildflowers grow there in the spring, all those new arrivals might be taking some of the charm out of the master-planned community…
Featherface, Young Mammals, Ishi & More Keep 8th Wonder’s One-Year Party Buzzing
The guys over at 8th Wonder are no stranger to delivering exactly what Houstonians desire, which mostly boils down to producing a delicious product in the most adventurous and amusing way possible. What began with the Eatsie Boys’ “Intergalactic Food Truck” and continued with the “Mmmontrose Cafe” has now been…
Going Healthy at Snap Kitchen
True story: A girlfriend of mine lost 12 pounds doing the Snap Kitchen 21-day challenge. Now, I want to lose 12 pounds, too, but I have to be honest when I say that the thought of eating healthy, pre-packaged foods for any length of time does not appeal. “I eat…
Best of Arian Foster’s First Week Back On Twitter
There are and will be many storylines heading into the Texans’ 2014 season, and there are many aspects of the team that need to line up “just so” if the team is going to have any hope of going 6-10 duplicating the massive turnarounds of previous 2-14-teams-selecting-first-overall. Yes, selecting a…
Dish of the Week: Chicken Tikka Masala
From classic comfort foods to regional standouts and desserts, we’ll be sharing a new recipe with you each week. See the complete list of recipes at the end of this post. Chicken tikka masala is a popular restaurant dish made up of chicken tikka — or bits of yogurt-marinated chicken…
Update: With UH Basketball, the Status Quo Rules the Day
It’s been 11 days since the Houston Cougars basketball season ended. A 94-65 ass-whipping handed to it by Louisville in the AAC Conference Tournament in Memphis. The loss left the Cougars at 17-16 for the season, three fewer victories than the previous season, and no post-season tournament in the offing…
My Daughter, Her Handheld, and Why I Love For Her to Have It
Huffington Post recently ran an article talking about the dangers of handheld use in children and how devices like tablets, cell phones, and the like should be banned for children under the age of twelve. Now in this article I will freely admit that pediatrician Chris Rowan cited a ton…
The Best Comics in March Part 1: Garth Ennis Does Homeward Bound
Each month the staff at 8th Dimension Comics picks out the best book to review. Look for Part 2 tomorrow. Veil #1: Whenever I see a Greg Rucka title I always feel like I’m in line for a roller coaster I am probably not tall enough to ride on safely…
Top 5 Weird Yogurt Flavors
I will never understand America’s obsession with yogurt; it just isn’t my thing. (Frozen yogurt, on the other hand, is a product I can definitely get behind.) And the diversity in yogurt flavors actually intensifies my lack of interest. These days, it seems as if manufacturers are in some sort…
NFL Fantasy Crime League Update: Titans Bit Player Busted on Solicitation Charge
First, as the commissioner of Fantasy Crime League, allow me to apologize. The totally fake bylaws of the FCL read, and I quote: “Bylaw 2.14.5.1.7: All employees, players and front office, of a franchise are considered eligible scorers, and shall thusly be treated as such, ipso facto ad nauseam.” (Latin…
Zac Brown Band at Reliant Stadium, 3/23/2014
Zac Brown Band Reliant Stadium March 22, 2014 This being their fourth performance at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, Zac Brown Band’s prowess onstage shouldn’t have surprised anyone Sunday night. But, of course, that didn’t make it any less impressive. A fitting close to this year’s Rodeo, ZBB pulled…
Flu So Pretty: 13 Ways to Feel/Look Slightly Less Gross When Sick
If you are one of the helpless victims of this year’s flu–or even just a really bad case of seasonal allergies–chances are you’ve found yourself bedridden in the last few months. And because there are only so many syndicated episodes of Parks and Recreation one can watch, you may have…
We’ve Narrowed Down the Most Underrated Burgers…Vote Now!
Last week we were seeking burger inspiration from you, dear readers. In an effort to expand our burger horizons, we wanted to know what you felt were the most underrated burgers in Houston. Hopefully yours, too, will be expanded in the process. We received hundreds of responses on the blog…
Court of Criminal Appeals Hears Homicide “Junk Science” Case
We don’t know how 17-month-old Tristen Rivet died. Neither does the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy. The problem is, that medical examiner once thought she knew how Rivet died. Patricia Moore believed the toddler was murdered. And Moore testified to that effect in a Montgomery County court in 1999,…
Stock Up on Sunscreen: Five Products for Summer
Summer equals sunscreen. If you live in Houston, and sunscreen isn’t a 365-day-a-year ritual, you should revisit the idea. Immediately. Clothes, hats, scarves, and sunglasses are great barriers to the sun’s harmful rays, but your skin needs protection all the time, guys. Each year, drugstores and beauty counters roll out…
Update: Cleanup Continues in Galveston Oil Spill
Update 6:30 p.m.:Although the Galveston ferry is up and running again (on a 7 a.m. to 7p.m. schedule) there’s still no word on when the Houston Ship Channel will reopen after more than 150,000 gallons of oil spilled into the waters. “We’re still working as hard as we can,” Lt…
Put Your Bib On for the Second Annual Houston Barbecue Festival
In 2013, 1,300 people came out in the chilly windy weather to stuff themselves silly with brisket, sausage, turkey and more at the inaugural Houston Barbecue Festival. And this year, we’re doing it all over again. The Second Annual Houston Barbecue Festival is back at Reliant Center on Sunday, April…
The Band Perry at Reliant Stadium, 3/22/2014
The Band Perry Reliant Stadium March 22, 2014 Even in 2014, Queen’s “Fat Bottom Girls” is not a song one normally expects to hear once in rodeo season, let alone twice. While Neil Perry, youngest member of the twentysomething Mobile-born sibling trio, couldn’t bring quite the same lascivious smirk to…
100 Favorite Dishes 2013-2014: No. 7, Chilorio at Pico’s Mex-Mex
This year, leading up to our annual Menu of Menus® issue, Kaitlin Steinberg counts down her 100 favorite dishes as she eats her way through Houston. She’ll compile a collection of the dishes she thinks are the most awesome, most creative and, of course, most delicious in town. It’s a…
Matt Schaub’s Oakland Press Conference: This Is Why They’re The Raiders
GroovehouseNow we know how Han Solo felt.I’ve always wondered what Han Solo felt like when he was melted out of his carbonite shell at the beginning of Return of the Jedi. If you recall, he had been in hibernation for an undisclosed (but not insignificant) amount of time when finally,…
Doctor Who: Before There Was the Sonic Screwdriver There Was the First Doctor’s Ring
Aside from the Tardis, the piece of equipment that is most associated with The Doctor is his all-purpose, and in my opinion extremely over-used, tool the sonic screwdriver. Of the 12 different incarnations of the Time Lord only three Doctors have completely forsworn using the device on television, and considering…
Easton Corbin at Reliant Stadium, 3/21/2014
Easton Corbin Reliant Stadium March 21, 2014 Perhaps in the future the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo can line up one shameless throwback entertainer per season, not some old veteran whose days of heavy airplay are long behind him or her, but a commercially viable younger artist who demonstrates that…
Mixtape Monday: Lil Keke, Anti-Lilly, Vic-D, Doeman & Tony Dark
Lil Keke, Album Before The Album 3 Lil Keke is fed up. Well, not in the literal sense. He’s quite fed; well-fed even. He’s practically the thesaurus of Houston rap slang, thanks to his vault on top of a vault of freestyles amassed during the early part of his career…
The Best Concerts In Houston This Week: Cher, Ellie Goulding, Schoolboy Q, Tool, etc.
Cher Toyota Center, March 24 Cher’s six-decade career is all the proof we need that she can do just about anything she sets her mind to. She’s a musician, an actress and an all-out badass from feathered head to stiletto-ed toe, and has been ever since the moment she hit…
American Idiot Is Pretty Much Music All the Time
The setup: The American punk rock band Green Day cooperated in turning its best-selling album American Idiot (five million sales) into a stage musical that opened in Berkeley, CA, and then moved to Broadway, where it ran for a year, to mixed but often favorable reviews. It was praised for…
Stand Your Ground, or Murder?
How many people have to die before we take a hard look at the stand-your-ground defense in Texas? How long before the message gets out that this will-nilly shooting of people on your property is a bad thing? Stand your ground is intertwined with The Castle Doctrine, which was a…
100 Favorite Dishes 2013-2014: No. 8, Pickled Butternut Squash Salad at Coltivare
This year, leading up to our annual Menu of Menus® issue, Kaitlin Steinberg counts down her 100 favorite dishes as she eats her way through Houston. She’ll compile a collection of the dishes she thinks are the most awesome, most creative and, of course, most delicious in town. It’s a…
Houston Vet Gets to Share His PTSD Story and Musical Recovery
Rock4Recovery.netPaul DelacerdaPaul Delacerda’s seen it all. From traveling the road living the rocker life and having it all tumble down in the mid-1990s. He was homeless for six months, living under a bridge near Interstate 610, then picked himself back up and joined the Army. He’s been back in Houston…
TUTs Kids Put Together 4 Instructional CDs That’ll Show Students Across the U.S. How to Hit Their Marks
Imagine, you’re a gym teacher or a science teacher and you’ve just been tasked with taking on the adviser’s role for your high school’s theater club. You’re bright, willing, enthusiastic and you don’t have a clue. A group of students from Houston just dedicated their spring break (well and future…
Laphroaig Affinity Cocktail for Your Inner Scotsman
With all of the ballyhoo surrounding St. Patrick’s Day, it’s easy to forget there’s another cultural group in the British Isles with funny accents and a penchant for whisky. No, no, I’m not talking about the Welsh, God bless them. Rather, the Scots, those venerable tartan-wearin’, bagpipe-playin’, sheep-intestine-eatin’ folks who…
Ryan Sumstad: Alleged Con Man Gets 20 Years for Wife’s Death
A Montgomery County man charged with killing his wife in 2011 was sentenced to 20 years in prison March 20 as part of a plea agreement, according to the Montgomery County Police Reporter. Prosecutors said Ryan Sumstad strangled his wife, Christie, in the couple’s bedroom after an argument, while their…
Salade Niçoise: The Perfect Hearty Meal When All You Want Is Salad
My family and I spent a lot of time in France when I was a child, and though I was never a picky eater per se, seven-year-old me wasn’t super-enthused about foie gras or bouillabaisse. I was, however, a fan of salad, and my parents and I immediately managed to…
Matt Schaub Traded to the Oakland Raiders
It’s Week 14 of the 2012 NFL season. The 11-1 Houston Texans are in New England for the biggest game of the season, taking on the Patriots. A win in New England and home field advantage in the playoffs and a first-round bye are all but clinched. The Texans trail…
The Joffrey Ballet’s American Legends Program Includes Stanton Welch’s Son of Chamber Symphony
In the early 1980s, Ashley Wheater was a young dancer for the Australian Ballet; at the time the company was led by Garth Welch. Stanton Welch, Garth’s son, was 14 years old and at the beginning of his dance training. The young men met and remained friends over the years…
Reviews for the Easily Distracted: Divergent
Title: Divergent What’s The Most Disturbing Thing About The Post-Apocalypse? That according to recent examples, everyone average looking or worse will have been killed off. Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: One and a half Bloods (from A Boy and his Dog) out of five. Brief Plot Synopsis:…
Blake Shelton at Reliant Stadium, 3/20/2014
Blake Shelton Reliant Stadium March 20, 2014 “We wanna get our swerve on; whatever the hell that means, man.” Huh. So it’s like that, Shelton. Thursday night at RodeoHouston, the 37-year-old Oklahoma-born country star and Voice personality took the stage before one very packed house of 75,054 fans, and it…
The History of Backstreet Cafe as Told Through Seasonal Recipes
“Thirty years ago, I took one huge leap of faith that completely changed the course of my life forever, and with it the course of many other lives. Thirty years ago, I opened Backstreet Cafe.” Thus begins restaurateur Tracy Vaught’s introduction to Backstreet Kitchen: Seasonal Recipes from Our Neighborhood Cafe,…
BP Back in Gulf Waters Thanks to the EPA
Once upon a time (about four years ago) it seemed like British Petroleum’s oil spilling sins in the Gulf of Mexico would never be forgiven. First the Deepwater Horizon became a fireball in the Gulf of Mexico. Then countless barrels of oil gushed from the ocean floor for weeks before…
Bulgari Bring the Sparkle to Houston Museum of Natural Science
Jewelry company Bulgari is celebrating its 130th Anniversary and the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences is playing host. Bulgari: 130 Years of Masterpieces will be once in a lifetime exhibition of 150 pieces of jewelry from the Bulgari Heritage Collection representing every period in the brands storied history, from its…
What’s in Fashion: L’Wren Scott Found Dead, Madonna Goes Full On Game of Thrones, Instagram Nail Art
Every week lots of breaking fashion news hits the interwebs and I don’t want you to miss one bit of it. So, I present 10 of the biggest headlines packaged by me each week for your reading pleasure. Click and enjoy…
Voice Daily Deal: Special-Price Tickets to Menu of Menus® Extravaganza
Houston Press will host the 12th annual Menu of Menus Extravaganza on Tuesday, April 8, from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. at Silver Street Station. And guess what? Ticket prices have DECREASED and will be available at these prices from today, Friday, March 21, until Tuesday, March 25. So, now…
Five Things That We Miss About the Rodeo Once It’s Over
I never realized just how big a deal the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo is until I moved to this fair city. Back home in Victoria we have a livestock show, but being that I’ve never been the most agriculturally inclined person all that livestock shows ever meant to me…
The 5 Best Things to Eat or Drink This Weekend: Beer and Food Trucks Galore
8th Wonder Anniversary Block Party @ 8th Wonder Brewery Friday, 6-11 p.m. 2202 Dallas 8th Wonder Brewery has been in Houston for one year and is throwing a block party tonight to celebrate — it’s a “Celeb8ion of Beer.” For $25 (tickets purchased at the door) you will receive a…
The Top 10 XXX Places to Party in Houston
Oh, stop side-eyeing us, you guys. Everyone needs this list, don’t they? You may not need it now, but trust us. One day you’ll be glad you printed it out and hid it under the mattress for safe-keeping. We’re not going to say much more on this one. We all…
The CSN Houston Bankruptcy Clown Show Just Keeps Clowning Away
Jim Crane, Les Alexander and Robert Pick have been “invited to attend to informally discuss a resolution” to the CSN Houston bankruptcy matter on Friday, March 28. The invitation has been extended by Federal District Court Judge Lynn Hughes, the man overseeing the Astros’ appeal of CSN Houston’s involuntary bankruptcy…
100 Creatives 2014: Jessica E. Jones, Opera Singer
Soprano Jessica E. Jones was just 15 years old when she landed her first opera role. It was less than a year after she had started voice lessons. Her teacher encouraged her to audition for a small role in The Marriage of Figaro at a local opera company. “So, I…
Houston House Music 101: An Extended DJ Summit
Recently, I blogged about two brothers who are professional accountants by day and amateur electronic dance music producers by night. It was a story about doing something outside the box and finding and fostering the creativity within us, no matter what we do to pay the bills. It was about…
Upcoming Events: The Bull & The Pearl Pop-Up Dinner & RA Sushi Guest Appreciation Day
The new Korean restaurant in River Oaks, Nara, now offers lunch and social hour menus. For lunch, chef Donald Chang will prepare a variety of new Korean dishes, such as buchim-gae (kimchi and seafood pancakes), oh-jing-uh bokkum (Korean sauteed squid), three sushi rolls and three Korean flatbread pizzas — bulgogi…
Houston Texans Sign Ryan Fitzpatrick to Fill “Underwhelming Veteran QB” Role
As NFL teams that matter continue to sign marquee free agents to cap swallowing contracts (Antonio Cromartie and Devin Hester on Thursday), the Texans continue to rummage through the free agency bargain bin. On Thursday, they finally found a purchase to their liking in the bin marked “CRAPPY VETERAN QUARTERBACKS.”…
Openings & Closings: Do You Want Doughnuts With That Ice Cream?
The Daily Review Cafe closed due to water issues, according to the Houston Chronicle’s Syd Kearney, but it seems like things have been going downhill for the restaurant for a while. Recently, Yelp reviewers have been giving the River Oaks cafe many poor reviews, saying it was “awful all around”…
Cowboy Diaries 2014: Hunter Cure
True cowboys are hard to find, but not at the Houston Rodeo. Life on the road leads them here this time every year for the biggest rodeo in the world, where they’ll ride and wrangle livestock for cash and glory. Each day, Hair Balls will spotlight one person with enough…
Houston Meets — Gasp! — Dallas at the Rodeo’s Champion Wine Garden
“Happy Rodeo! It’s like our own little holiday! I love it!” It’s early in the evening, but the wine and the greetings are both flowing at Carruth Plaza in the heart of Reliant Park. The folks here are dressed to the nines for rodeo season, and between the blingy cowboy…
The Top 5 Things to Do in Houston This Weekend: Five Funny French Films, American Idiot, Neon Dash and More
It’s a weekend of hilarity — hilarity with an accent — at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Five Funny French Films festival, an annual gathering of contemporary French comedies. Friday starts off with Regis Roinsard’s Populaire (2012), in which the sexual politics of the 1950s are played out via…
Rice vs. UH: Who Has Musical Bragging Rights?
Many moons ago, or one or two anyway, our friends over at L.A. Weekly’s West Coast Sound decided to evaluate Southern California’s two main universities, USC and UCLA, using a set of music-oriented criteria and declare a winner. We’re not talking matriculation either, though that’s certainly part of it –…
Amazon’s Funniest One-Star Classic Album Reviews
As a music writer, it can be beneficial to seek out other music reviews to see what people are thinking, aficionados and trolls alike. Let’s look at Amazon, a popular site where I admit I’ve spent a bit of money and time. You can find anything here, down to your…
Houston’s Top 10 Honky-Tonks
As our sister blog Eating…Our Words does, from time to time Rocks Off will be giving your our picks for the top taverns in various Houston-area neighborhoods. Of course, the lines can be porous, but here anything with a TABC license that cannot reasonably be considered either a restaurant, coffeehouse…
Houston’s Best Weekend Shows: Easton Corbin, Suzanna Choffel, Be the Match Benefit, etc.
Easton Corbin Reliant Stadium, March 21 Making his RodeoHouston debut, Easton Corbin stands in stark contrast to the rest of the 2014 lineup because of how…country he is in a sea of hard-rock pretenders and lite-rock spring breakers. Corbin has put more than one critic in mind (favorably) of not…
Robbery Suspect Catches Beat-Down in Attempted Purse Snatching Inside Bar
Patrick Ridioux was probably wondering where his friends went while patrons were beating his face in for allegedly trying to steal a woman’s purse at Draft Picks Sports Bar on FM 529. Harris County Sheriff’s Deputies were called to the bar just before midnight Wednesday when they said Ridioux, 21,…
Menu of Menus® Welcomes Tex-Mex, Seafood and Organic Restaurants to the Mix
The 12th annual Menu of Menus® food and wine extravaganza is coming up quickly, and we’re excited to announce a few more of the restaurants that will be joining us at the celebration. On April 8, be ready to taste some delectable Tex-Mex food from local chain Los Cucos Mexican…
Recap: Houston Whiskey Festival 2014
The first Houston Whiskey Festival is in the books, having taken place downtown at the Julia Ideson Building on McKinney this past Saturday. An unexpectedly rainy day proved to be a harbinger (and a partial cause) of some complications inside. While we loved the setting and were able to sample…
Texans Tracker Update: The Blake Bortles’ Pro Day Gushing Adjustment
It’s funny, it’s been so long since I was in an NFL city that had a high draft pick and an acute need at the quarterback position, I had forgotten how much garbage fun Pro Days for quarterbacks are. Add into this the fact that the opinions among fans, and…
First Look at Dish Society: Casual Farm-to-Table Dining
Texas (especially the Houston region) is blessed with a multitude of produce farms, breweries, meat producers and dairy farms. While it is common for Houston restaurants to showcase a few local producers’ products in menu items, there aren’t many restaurants that are solely farm-to-table. And that’s why restaurateur Aaron Lyons…
My Inaugural Visit to Taco Cabana
They say there’s a first time for everything, though I really didn’t think that aphorism would ever apply to me eating at Taco Cabana. I’ve been living in Texas going on seven years and managed to avoid it; how, then, did I come to go by myself early on a…
Missouri City Bank Robbery Suspect Grabs Loot, Gets Away on Kiddie Bike
Missouri City cops are investigating a recent bank robbery.At first, cops must’ve thought it was some kind of prank. A guy walks into a bank on Wednesday afternoon, asks for some money and walks out. His getaway car, though? A little kiddie bike. Maybe drugs were involved, who knows. But…
UPDATED: Protest Today in Spring in Case of Teen Killed in Girl’s Bedroom
UPDATE: The protest/press conference has been canceled. According to the latest press release from Quanell X, Zakia McCormick, Johran’s adoptive mother, “had to leave immediately for New Orleans, due to a family emergency. It appears that the young man’s mother..who is from New Orleans, has taken control over the body,…
How to ‘Send Back’ a Bottle of Wine at a Restaurant
Looking for more wine knowledge? Check out more of our “how-to wine” series. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I am often treated disparagingly by sommeliers in fine-dining restaurants. It’s sad, but it’s true. A week before last, while in Atlanta to deliver a talk at a conference,…
Rice Grad Student Translates a Roman Soldier’s Letter From Centuries Ago
Roman military recruit Aurelius Polion was homesick. We know this 1,800 years later because Rice University grad student Grant Adamson has deciphered a private letter Polion wrote in Greek to his family on papyrus. According to a Rice University press release, Polion has written six unanswered letters to his mother,…
Florida Georgia Line at Reliant Stadium, 3/19/2014
Florida Georgia Line Reliant Stadium March 19, 2014 Florida Georgia Line are easy to mistake for “bro country”: they rhyme “Bocephus” with “Jesus” and would sooner walk as drive around in anything other than a candy-painted Silverado. But “bro-country” implies some sort of douchiness at its core, and these two…
Doctor Who: We’re Catching Up to “The Future” Rapidly, and It’s Not That Wrong
George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1948, giving humanity almost four decades to make his dystopia come true. That’s sort of the sweet spot of science fiction a lot of the time. You want to set your story far enough in the future to make fantastic new elements not seem…
Baking with Bacon Grease
So you’re up on the locavore movement and appreciate organics, but what are your thoughts about nose-to-tail eating? You don’t have to enjoy sweetbreads to get the most out of the meat you make on a weekly basis. To avoid creating waste, try putting side products to use. Bacon is…
The Rocks Off 200: Heading Upstream with RIVERS’ Chris Tamez
Welcome to The Rocks Off 200, our portrait gallery of the most compelling profiles and personalities in the far-flung Houston music community — a lot more than just musicians, but of course they’re in there too. See previous entries in the Rocks Off 100 at this link. Who? If you…
Wheel of Fortune Hail Mary, So Crazy It Almost Looks Fixed (with Video)
With all due respect to the four play-in games in Dayton, Ohio the last two nights, today is the first real day of March Madness. We’ve all probably filled out a bracket, and we all head into Thursday afternoon’s games with a hope (albeit a 1 in 9.2 quintillion hope)…
The Future of Marvel Looks Awesome and Weird
That image above, ladies and gentlemen, is the future of cinema: a talking raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) riding a walking tree (voiced by Vin Diesel). It is beyond absurd. It’s an idea so ludicrious that it’s hard to imagine that anyone would spend the millions of dollars it would…
March Madness 2014: The Tourney in Prop Bets
Come this time of year, almost everyone is filling out brackets. Hardcore fans, casual fans, kids, adults, bosses, secretaries…we all love March Madness! However, this is also a time of year where degenerates get even more degenerate. Spreads, moneylines, prop bets, futures, exotics…everything is on the menu. It’s all fair…
100 Favorite Dishes 2013-2014: No. 9, Uni Chawanmushi at Kata Robata
This year, leading up to our annual Menu of Menus® issue, Kaitlin Steinberg counts down her 100 favorite dishes as she eats her way through Houston. She’ll compile a collection of the dishes she thinks are the most awesome, most creative and, of course, most delicious in town. It’s a…
Rest of the Best: Houston’s Top 10 Museums
Among Houston’s biggest and most popular destination areas is the Museum District. It’s jammed with a variety of world class organizations dedicated to art, culture and history. Of course, not all of the city’s museums are inside the district, as our top 10 list shows. Before we get to the…
10 Years After its Inception, Rodeo Uncorked! Brings in More People Than Ever
When you think of the rodeo, what do you picture? Cowboys? Longhorns? Children lassoing mutton? Giant turkey legs? How ’bout wine? Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile? Sparkling Rosé from New Zealand? What about Marchesi Antinori Tenuta Guado al Tasso “Tenuta Belvedere” Bolgheri Superiore from Tuscany? If the Houston Livestock Show and…
Cowboy Diaries 2014: Taylor Jacob
True cowboys are hard to find, but not at the Houston Rodeo. Life on the road leads them here this time every year for the biggest rodeo in the world, where they’ll ride and wrangle livestock for cash and glory. Each day, Hair Balls will spotlight one person with enough…
’90s Survivors the Gin Blossoms: “There Won’t Be Too Many Left Turns”
When Rocks Off reached Gin Blossoms guitarist Jesse Valenzuela recently, he was a man on a mission. But it had nothing to do with either creating or playing music. “I’m taking a walk through my neighborhood and going to the store to get taco ingredients. I’m making them for my…
The Last VJ’s Top Five Videos of the Week
Welcome back, music fans. The Last VJ has some treats for you this week, which run the gamut from ecstatically artistic to banal to the point of brilliance. The indescribable nuttiness of Bunny Michael returns with new work, and I indulge my juvenile side with a rap battle between video-game…
Fourth Annual Kemah Crawfish Festival
You can call them crayfish, crawdads, mudbugs or — if you want to get all science-nerdy — members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea. The critters (cleaned and cooked, of course) will be the stars at the Fourth Annual Kemah Crawfish Festival. The delectable delights will be seasoned and simmered…
Five Funny French Films
It’s a weekend of hilarity — hilarity with an accent — at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Five Funny French Films festival, an annual gathering of contemporary French comedies. Serge Bozon’s Tip Top (2013) opens the program on Thursday. For mature audiences, Tip Top is a deadpan comedy starring…
Haute Wheels Food Truck Festival
Don’t worry about tracking down the location of your favorite food trucks this weekend, because they’re all in one central location. Haute Wheels Food Truck Festival returns with 38 mobile eateries gathering to serve their tasty snacks, treats and bites. (Proceeds benefit, in part, the Houston Community College Foundation.) Stop…
American Idiot
Will is the guy who stays home, who does right by his pregnant girlfriend and gives up his dreams rather than move to the big city with his two friends. Except it doesn’t work, and what better way to play out his angst than with Green Day’s punk rock opera…
2013/2014 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series: Daniel Alarcn and Mohsin Hamid
Authors Daniel Alarcón and Mohsin Hamid share the stage for the 2013/2014 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series: Alarcón , winner of the International Literature Prize and the PEN USA Novel Award for Lost City Radio, will be reading from and discussing his recent novel At Night We Walk in…
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
Pulitzer Prize-winning Lynn Nottage’s comedy By the Way, Meet Vera Stark looks at what life was like for an African American actress in 1930s Hollywood. Here’s a hint: You could play a maid or a mammy, end of options. Inspired by the life of Houston native and actress Theresa Harris…
“Collective Reaction”
Artists from Spain, Iraq, Germany and America are represented in “Collective Reaction,” a photography and video installation exhibition by Station Museum of Contemporary Art in conjunction with the FotoFest 2014 Biennial. The six exhibits that make up “Collective Reaction” all address the idea that, while there are now more images…
Bobby Bradford
Former Texan Bobby Bradford, a jazz trumpeter/cornettist, was alongside Fort Worth saxophonist Ornette Coleman during the birth of free jazz in the 1960s. Bradford’s in town courtesy of Nameless Sound and will lead a raucous performance with Norwegian saxophonist Frode Gjerstad. Bradford and Gjerstad first collaborated in the 1980s. The…
The Champion Wine Garden Is a Welcome Respite From the Rodeo Chaos
‘Happy Rodeo! It’s like our own little holiday! I love it!” It’s early in the evening, but the wine and the greetings are both flowing at Carruth Plaza in the heart of Reliant Park. The folks here are dressed to the nines for rodeo season, and between the blingy cowboy…
Shailene Woodley Proves More Human Than Divergent
Dystopian movies don’t have to make sense. As the audience, we’re obligated to sit down with our popcorn and soda and pretend that yes, of course, in the future monkeys rule the earth, women can’t bear children, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is an everyday construction worker. It’s a mutual contract of…
I Want to Move in With My Boyfriend. Help!
Welcome to Ask Willie D, Rocks Off’s advice column where the Geto Boys MC answers reader questions about matters, in his own words, “funny, serious or unpredictable.” Something on your mind? Ask Willie D! MY FRIEND WANTS A BABY SO SHE WILL FEEL LOVED Dear Willie D: Even though she…
Brothel From Another Planet
Setting aside all the women are people too! thinking that might make us a touch more enlightened than our forebears, I have to ask: Is it possible that the old-world or frontier brothel could ever be as warm and brilliant a place as the movies posit it? In films like…
Yes We Can!
The Chicano labor leader César Chávez can now join Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the pantheon of heroes whose world-altering achievements are dutifully recounted in timid, lifeless films any substitute can pop into the school DVD player when the regular history teacher is out with the flu. With César…
The Joffrey Ballet: American Legends
It’s an evening of work by the modern dance masters at Joffrey Ballet’s American Legends. The Joffrey, now led by Artistic Director Ashley Wheater, performs a three-act program. Jerome Robbins’s non-narrative Interplay opens the first act, followed by Christopher Wheeldon’s pas de deux After the Rain. The second act features…
Neon Dash Houston
In the grand tradition of wacky races (think of runners dressed as Elvis or in bridal gowns or underwear) comes the Neon Dash Houston. Runners — who must come attired in mostly solid white T-shirts — will run, jog, walk or dance a 5K race into four different “Glow Zones.”…
Time in Motion
Musiqa aims to be the forum where “the modern arts intersect.” Why go to a chamber music concert when you can go to a combination chamber music concert, dance performance, poetry reading, theatrical presentation, film screening and visual art exhibit? That’s the thinking behind Musiqa, which uses a musical base…
The 10 Best Bad Music Videos of the ’90s
Last month we talked about all the kitschy bad music videos that came out in the ’80s and now tickle the fancy of pop-culture geeks like myself. This time, let’s focus in on the ’90s, which were great because everyone thought they had figured out how to make music videos…
Cheap Thrills Exposes Human Awfulness and Not Enough Else
As Bob Zmuda tells it, screenwriter Norman Wexler used to tote a briefcase full of thousands of dollars to pay off the many people he pissed off each day. Zmuda — the comedian, writer, tall-tale dispenser and longtime wrangler of Andy Kaufman — dished his best Wexler story on Marc…
Crawfish Season Is Off to a Slow Start
Season’s Eating “The only thing better than a crawfish dinner is five crawfish dinners.” — Coach Red Beaulieu, The Waterboy Ain’t that the truth? It’s time to eat up, because crawfish season is upon us once again…well, sort of. Gulf Coast crawfish season typically begins in early to mid-March, but…
Missing Dads
Tyler Perry probably wishes he’d been raised by a single mom. As he has said in interviews, his father, Emmitt, was abusive and once beat him so hard with a vacuum hose that his skin felt flayed. In response, the writer-director reveres mothers, synthesizing his mom and aunt into the…
Capsule Art Reviews: “The Age of Impressionism: Great French Paintings from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute,” “Georges Braque: A Retrospective,” John Singer Sargent: The Watercolors, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938
“The Age of Impressionism: Great French Paintings from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute” These days, Impressionist exhibitions are the art museum version of the ballet The Nutcracker: frothy and beautiful, if a little overexposed, and sure to pack ’em in at almost any price. Even though we’ve already…
On Gender and Paychecks
Highlights from Hair Balls Political Animals Abbott World just can’t seem to catch a break. It began last week with his dancing around the question of his support for the Texas Equal Pay Act on a Sunday talk show, and some very damaging evidence that emerged a few days later…
Copycats
Only in Houston Houston may be home to ten trillion tribute bands aping everybody from Pat Benatar to Pantera, but even with not one but two Concert Pubs giving the people what they want on a weekly basis, there’s not a lot of opportunity out there to hear a local…
Capsule Stage Reviews: Gidion’s Knot, A Little Night Music, Rome, Ruined, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily
Gidion’s Knot Playwright Johnna Adams’s play explores how and why a fifth-grade student, Gidion, came to blow his brains out just before dinner on a Friday, after being suspended from a public school in Lake Forest, Illinois. It pits the bereaved mother against Gidion’s female teacher in a teacher/parent conference…
Mexican Sweets and a Civil Rights Pioneer
Dear Mexican, What’s the story with Mexican pastries? Like most cultures, Mexicans seem to be cribbing from the French, but pan dulce just winds up tasting like a dinner roll with a little icing on top. So many other parts of Mexican cuisine emphasize strong flavors. Why must the best…
Trapped: There Are No Simple Solutions to Houston’s Traffic Crisis
Houston is an incredibly diverse place with people from all backgrounds, races, walks of life and political persuasions. But nothing unites us like our shared disdain for the city’s traffic nightmare. From pothole-filled streets and congested freeways to never-ending construction and poor planning, nothing inspires the kind of hatred you…
Just Dinner Is So Much More Than That
The dessert was supposed to be a masterpiece. I heard it before I saw it, at other tables in the small, intimate dining room. A loud whoosh, like the noise produced by a vacuum cleaner, followed by squeals of delight and the clapping of hands. Finally, I saw the dessert…
The Texans Have a New Coach and Have Cleaned House, Yet Rick Smith Is Still Around
“This is not a long-term rebuilding process. I want to make that clear. We’ve got core players who are outstanding players and we still need to fill a few holes.” — Houston Texans owner Bob McNair, 12/6/13 On that fateful day in December, when he was bringing a merciful end…
Muppets Most Wanted Is a Great Caper
If you count forward from Jim Henson’s mid-1960s TV appearances with a fringy pup named Rowlf and the lizard, made from an old winter coat, who would later become Kermit the Frog, the Muppets have outlived most of their early puppet peers by more than two generations: You don’t see…
