Tribute to Johnny Clyde Copeland
It’s hard to believe that July 3 will mark five years since Johnny Clyde Copeland passed away. Even though he made his name internationally from his adopted hometown of Harlem, Copeland never forgot to give props to the Third Ward, most prominently on his “Houston,” one of the finest songs…
Living in a House of Cards
Last August, shortly after returning as chief executive officer of Enron Corp., Ken Lay sent an e-mail to employees asking them to “Lay It On The Line” and answer a few questions about the company. Within days, Lay received more than 4,000 responses from around the world, covering issues that…
Hatebreed
No disrespect to the so-called rapcore acts being tagged as the next generation of metal, but taking over where the monsters of rock left off requires more than a few catchy riffs, a gimmick and a hot buzz clip. Lo, a new breed of metal has arisen, one that harks…
Bridges II the Bend
ALPINE — Out in the heart of the sand-blown Trans-Pecos region of Texas, where, as an ancient cowboy poet once wrote, “the rainbows wait for rain,” things literary generally take a backseat to the dreary essentials of survival. There’s just not much time for leisure reading when a well needs…
Home Alone Again
With Panic Room, about the night Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her teenage daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) are home-invaded by a trio of burglars seeking hidden treasure, dyspeptic director David Fincher reveals himself as little more than a derivative visionary. For some, this will be plenty: As mainstream, studio-financed movies…
The Cannabis Caper
Last month, Clayton Jones of Houston got his hands on a newsletter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). The 54-year-old paraplegic and double amputee believes that marijuana should be legal for medicinal purposes. Finding kindred spirits at NORML, he felt moved to send a contribution…
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
It’s readily apparent that Danny DeVito’s Death to Smoochy deals with a thoroughly debauched children’s television host (Robin Williams) who plots, amid much dark zaniness, to destroy his squeaky-clean successor (Edward Norton). It’s also quite easy to proclaim it the greatest movie ever made…about a singing vegan in a fuchsia…
Protest Too Much
It was apparently an irresistible story, and few resisted. A group of Houston sixth-graders from Lanier Middle School was scheduled to take a tour of the White House on March 15, but because of a bureaucratic snafu they were denied entry. Their teacher, Jim Henley, organized a photogenic protest outside…
Human Hater
No clown in Houston is more limber, rubber-faced and flat-out hysterical than funnyman Jef Johnson. These days he’s cavorting across the stage at Main Street Theater in Molière’s famous farce The Misanthrope. As Alceste, hater of humankind extraordinaire, Johnson shows what can happen when a man gets so pumped up…
Half-Baked Notions?
Half-Baked Notions? Capitalist crap: John Suval’s paean to success through industry [“American Breadwinners,” March 14] comes straight out of a tradition of capitalist fantasy literature. Such stories reassure their comfortable middle-class readers that prosperity is evidence of personal merit. They urge discipline and self-sacrifice, but only on the poor. They…
Hitting the High Notes
One of the greatest challenges in opera is to sing and act with equal agility. Mastering one of these art forms is difficult enough; since opera’s early days, multitalented singers like Maria Callas have been rare. Mozart’s quintessential opera, The Marriage of Figaro, adds yet another hurdle: Its performers must…
Mixing It Up
After a decade of whetting appetites, Dance Salad has grown into a full-course meal. This year the highly regarded sampling of cutting-edge international dance is like a mini-festival, with three evenings of performances plus master classes and educational outreach. “It’s like giving birth,” says founder and producer Nancy Henderek. “You…
If Walls Could Talk
An American flag hangs high in John Cleary Gallery. Beneath it, press-on type proclaims, in appropriate post-September 11 patriotism, “God Bless America.” On the gallery walls below, all-American youths shoot speed in the family room. The irony of the juxtaposition is inadvertent but apt. The images are from Larry Clark’s…
The Great Restaurant Sale
With all due respect to Pet Clark, downtown is not really where it’s happening these days. Between the crumbling infrastructure the city is always repairing, the beautifying Cotswold Project and now the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s light rail track, it’s a daily battle to find the right detour. Last year Prairie…
The Pitch
Before he died of congestive heart failure in March 1992, Richard Brooks, director of The Blackboard Jungle and In Cold Blood, used to tell this story. It takes place sometime in the late 1940s, when Brooks was ascending royalty in Hollywood; after all, he’d written John Huston’s Key Largo, starring…
Main Street Refuge
With my ears ringing and my nose full of dust, I took refuge from the Main Street construction at Osteria d’Aldo (301 Main, 713-224-2536). With its high Victorian eaves and green awnings on a white facade, the building could just as easily be standing on a corner in San Francisco…
Support without Brassieres
The scene isn’t all that unusual: some disturbingly gorgeous exotic dancers sitting around a table at the back of the Ritz Cabaret with a few lucky local musicians. It’s the topic of conversation that’s unexpected. The group is engaged in a thoughtful, personal discussion about breast cancer. Dara, a Nina…
Rock and Roll Swirlie
Somewhere along the line, loud, fast rock and roll slammed on its brakes and sobered up. Hard rock and metal (KISS, Van Halen, Mötley Crüe) brought a sense of humor to the mainstream in the ’70s and ’80s, but now the old-school rockers are too busy paying penance for their…
Thai Raid
Bangkok hot beef salad is a nest of lettuce topped with sizzling beef in a hot and tangy lemongrass sauce, says the menu at Blue Orchid. This place calls itself a Viet-Thai restaurant. I wonder if the beef in the salad is chopped fine and highly seasoned, as in the…
A Piece of the Pie
It’s a drab spring afternoon, the Monday after South By Southwest, and Johnny Goudie has just enough time to fit in a caffeine- and nicotine-drenched interview before he starts his new job as a pizza delivery guy. The situation would make for a great Behind the Music-oh-how-the-mighty-have-fallen twist if Goudie…
Franchise This
If Fast Food Nation has a main street, it’s 61st Street in Galveston. The busy thoroughfare is a visual roll call of Jack in the Arch McWendy Kings. Hungry beachgoers are left to decide which franchise they’re least tired of — unless they’re lucky enough to spot the humble, jumbled…
Cultural Clash
It’s Friday afternoon on Austin’s über-hip South Congress strip, and the Allen Oldies Band has set up in front of an antique shop. All its members are in evening wear even though it’s mid-afternoon — dark shades their only nod to coolness. Saxman Joe “Teen Idol” Earthman is wearing a…
Ultimate Fakebook
Ultimate Fakebook singer/guitarist Bill McShane wears big black spectacles, and not just to advertise his myopia. He’s aligning himself with other — for lack of a better term — “nerd rockers,” from Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo and MU330’s Dan Potthast to New Wavers Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, and even all…
Fugazi
You can be forgiven (this time, at least) if you’ve never heard of Washington, D.C., indie “superstars” Fugazi. These four guys probably will never make it onto mainstream radio, and they don’t particularly care. As the long-reigning, self-reliant kings of all things independent, they’ve grown accustomed to playing strictly by…
The Beta Band
The Beta Band can help you relax. They specialize in the kind of slow, chin-bobbing grooves that urge you to dance, walk or water the plants in a cheerful, introspective mood. Call it their Edinburgh vibe: They make music you can dance to in heavy raingear. Everything they play has…
Flogging Molly
U2, the Cranberries and the Corrs may be from Ireland, but they’re not Irish rock. That’s the terrain of bands like the Pogues, Lenahan and the Prodigals, all of whom blend bagpipes, bodhrans and tin whistles with electric guitars. Add to that list the L.A.-based Mollys, led by singer/guitarist and…