Static
Girlie man… As he’s gotten older and bolder, Johnny Goudie has become less afraid to flaunt a certain sexual ambiguity. Lately, the Austin gossip mills have been crawling with reports of the Houston native’s exhibitionist displays in his adopted hometown. His silly acts of gender defiance have been rumored to…
Hot Plate
Of all the major food groups, which two are the most important? Meat and Guinness, of course. So rejoice, all ye who fret about your health. There’s now a simple way to get your recommended daily allowance of both: Waddle over to McGonigel’s Mucky Duck (2425 Norfolk, 528-5999) and order…
Rotation
Eric Clapton Pilgrim Reprise Records To those for whom the ’60s are less a memory than a myth, to those who believe yesterday never means as much as tomorrow, Eric Clapton barely exists. His post-’80s output contains scarcely an echo of what he created in the ’60s and early ’70s,…
Press Picks
thursday march 5 “Small Deaths: Kate Breakey” Who among us — out on an evening stroll, say — hasn’t had the sort of pedestrian encounter with mortality that photographer and University of Texas at Austin instructor Breakey portrays with such aching, indelible beauty in this traveling exhibit? Still, there’s nothing…
Big Place. Big Mistakes.
I received the fright of my life when I entered the new La Strada. (There are now two: the old one on Westheimer and this second version on the corner of Sage and San Felipe.) The place is huge! Not long huge, necessarily; and definitely not wide huge. I mean,…
Unforgettable?
There’s nothing like death to give a rising rock and roll star instant status as a legend. Ritchie Valens, who died in the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper, is considered such even though he had only two Top 40 hits. The legacies of Janis Joplin,…
Ordinary Superstar
“There were a lot of farm people in my family, and you just did your work,” says Vince Gill. “You didn’t stand there and grandstand about it.” That upbringing perhaps helps to explain Gill’s unusual modesty. He possesses one of the most heart-tugging tenors in all of music, not to…
Gradual Growth
If forced to lump Michael Fracasso into a category among singer/songwriters, you could say that he’s the literary type. His songs have always had a shrewd combination of powerful images and memorable melodies. Yet, despite critical acclaim, two solid releases under his belt and a band that’s so hot it…
Old Sorrow, Newly Raw
Familial love is often, ironically, a dark and lonely terrain, filled with heartaching rage and bitter resentment. Occasional moments of tender forgiveness are sometimes all that keep families in love, all that keep families together. Such is the case with the Tyrones, the semiautobiographical family of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning…
Too Late
A movie starring Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, James Garner and Stockard Channing ought to be a whole lot better than Robert Benton’s Twilight. It’s one of those “autumnal” movies about a private detective who is too old for the game but still goes through the motions. Benton, in…
Coens Go to Pot
Jeff Bridges is so euphorically wacked as a social dropout in The Big Lebowski that you get a secondhand high just looking at him. Padding around Venice, California, in a T-shirt that barely covers his midriff bulge, he’s like a beach bum who bowls instead of surfs. His nickname is…
Venus Envy
Dangerous Beauty presents a 16th-century Venice filled with statesmen who hop from bed to bed without fear of “bimbo eruptions.” That’s because the courtesans aren’t bimbos, and they aren’t hidden: Everyone from the admiralty to the bishopric patronizes them. Having developed their minds along with their erotic skills, they’re boon…
Dissecting Dr. Carter
When Dr. Joye Carter took over as the chief medical examiner of Harris County 19 months ago, she knew she was inheriting an office in crisis. Still, Carter might be excused if she did not anticipate her past two months of job-threatening problems. First, in January, Carter and two other…
The Last Conqueror
Unless it is a gunshot, there is nothing sweeter to the ears of Cecil M. Hopper than the sound of a bulldozer in the morning. Pistons surging, great trees cracking and falling, the proud earth crumbling and giving way — “I just love the woods,” said Cecil, and in truth,…
Not Wasted on the Young
I drove like a bat out of hell: Three hours and ten minutes, Houston to Dallas, must be some sort of record. But speed limits and rush-hour traffic were not going to make me miss the opening number of Rent, the same touring production premiering here in Houston on Wednesday…
The Insider
The Unstoppable O’Quinn Houston super-lawyer John O’Quinn has built a reputation as a plaintiff’s attorney on the edge in recent years, provoking investigations in South Carolina and Texas for allegedly hiring case runners to bring him business — which is illegal. At the same time, he was drinking heavily enough…
Look Back in Anger
British actor Gary Oldman, who made his mark playing a punk in Sid and Nancy and a playwright in Prick Up Your Ears, wrote and directed Nil by Mouth, which has already drawn comparisons to the class-conscious dramas of Mike Leigh (Naked, Secrets & Lies). The film, which Oldman dedicates…
Final Down
The long, sad federal case of the high school athlete who was benched [“The Trophy Son,” January 15] came to a conclusion last week when it was dismissed by U.S. District Judge John Rainey. In throwing out all claims, Rainey observed that Kyle Rutherford’s disappointment is experienced in every high…
Dish
How the West Was Lost I don’t think of myself as being easily shocked, but I have to tell you this: I attended the World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Cook-off on the Astrodome grounds recently, and it left me badly shaken. I can’t say I wasn’t warned. “Be careful,” a friend said…
Letters
Pressing the Pulse Thank goodness for your paper. I’m trying to entertain family from Turkey, and your paper makes it possible to keep in touch with the pulse of Houston. After all, there’s not a whole lot to see in our city. Sue Ulu via Internet Diverse Worship Thanks for…