The Insider
The Mosbagger Maneuver For such a cute ‘n’ cuddly guy, Rob Mosbacher sure has some powerful enemies in the Texas Legislature. All it took was the circulation of a list of (mostly) big-name Houstonians supporting Mosbacher’s mayoral candidacy — including downtown stadia boys Ben Love and Ken Lay — to…
Letters
Class Perspective Surely the Elyse Lanier/Lloyd Kelley “world-class Houston” seminar has to rank very high on anyone’s list of fatheaded nonsense [“Unbelievable! Fabulous! World Class! Outstanding!” February 13]. It seems to me that being “world class” is rather like being “virgin.” One either is or one is not, and if…
Press Picks
thursday march 6 A pair of fundraisers One’s rooted in remembrance, the other in hope, and both offer chances — organized chances — for some righteous partying. In the first, Houston’s monied set extends an appreciative hand to the young family of Ruben Lopez, the volunteer firefighter who died trying…
Slow Fusion
The order was straightforward enough: a bowl of miso soup to start off dinner. However, what my waiter was bearing toward my table perplexed me: a soup plate containing small heaps of finely sliced leek, small cubes of tofu, paper-thin mushroom slices, seaweed leaves, minced fish flesh — and no…
The Once and Future Dolemite
The first time I saw Rudy Ray Moore doing his act live, he was laying out a heavy hand of rude, raw, scatological humor. A big man who seems somehow more dark-skinned in person than he does on-screen, where he forever lives on as the B-grade blaxploitation hero Dolemite, Moore…
God’s Own Player
The fact that pianist Cyrus Chestnut grew up surrounded by great music shouldn’t come as much of a shock. Jazz isn’t for everyone, after all, and a passion for the genre is often instilled in its purveyors at a young age. From there, a player is apt to carry the…
Static
Latin, not Tejano… Blame it on Must-See TV, or maybe the winter blahs, but whatever the reason, the Fabulous Satellite Lounge was taking it on the chin when I arrived on an especially dead Thursday in February. By the time the opening act took the stage, a mere 25, maybe…
Rotation
U2 Pop Island Remember when U2 was more a rock band than a high-tech concept? Come now, it wasn’t that long ago. Think back to a simpler, more naive time, before a sound awash in experimental atmospherics; before the stage makeup, elaborate costumes, comical smirks and wrap-around shades. Specifically, think…
Luscious Noise
With 1994’s Natural Ingredients, Luscious Jackson immediately set themselves apart from virtually every other band on the current music scene. Inspired by New York’s late ’80s purveyors of punk and hip-hop, Luscious Jackson combined those two often polarized musical worlds for a sound uniquely their own. Samples and break beats…
Trial by Video
Over the last six months, the Houston consumer protection office of the Texas attorney general has spent a lot of time, a lot of energy and a lot of money — in the neighborhood of $100,000 — investigating and suing a group of local surgical assistants for fraud. And after…
Rite Fine
The looming premiere of the Houston Ballet’s Dracula has all but overshadowed the company’s spring repertory concert. But, as is usually the case with this spirited company, when the chips are on the table, the dancers come through. The downplayed program opened last Thursday night with performances fiery enough to…
A Day to Remember
When Ella Fitzgerald died last year, one of her many obituaries pointed out that, influential and respected as she was, she was never quite as popular with the crowds as Billie Holiday. The primary reason? She had none of Holiday’s on-stage glamour. There’s a truth to that observation, one that…
Reason to Live
In 1993, Joni Rodgers started writing a novel. Late at night, while her kids were in bed, she pecked at her keyboard, creating Tulsa Bitters, a heroine suspiciously like Rodgers’s younger self: a tall, red-haired disc jockey, sensitive about her weight, a bookworm who learned oral-sex techniques by reading Erica…
Radio Daze
During the first few minutes of Howard Stern’s romp through his inexplicable life, he spells out his mission: Private Parts will both convert the nonbelievers and entertain the cult. Stern wants to give you plenty of hot lesbian action (and freed from FCC restrictions, he takes real pleasure in saying…
Rapumentary
Given that hip-hop has begun turning on itself — gangsta factions splinter between Left and Right coasts, Marion “Suge” Knight is knocked off Death Row and placed in Cell Block No. 9, Snoop Doggy Dogg gets a Lollapalooza slot and prays it ain’t on the second stage — Peter Spirer’s…
Ezekiel’s Trust
Rena Minar paid her last visit to Ezekiel Gibbs in 1992. She found the 103-year-old artist alone in his living room, seated at the work table where he did most of his drawings. Gibbs had no art supplies — no crayons, no markers, no sketch paper. “When I asked why,…