A Sure-Footed Fish
Don’t let the English translation for snapper scarpariello ($19.95) keep you from trying the hearty dish at Grotto [3920 Westheimer, (713)622-3663; 6401 Woodway, (713)782-3663]. Though scarpariello loosely translates to “shoes,” the entree really doesn’t taste like worn old leather. You’ll be relieved to know that just the opposite is true:…
Roasting Marshmallows
A word of warning to theater lovers: The Hallmark season is upon us. And Buber Malone, offered by The Little Room Downstairs Theater, is simply the first of what promises to be many money-grubbing, family-friendly (read: insipid) shows about the goodness of humanity. That said, Richard Laub’s script is certainly…
Talking Non-Turkey
Speaking off the toque: John A. Salazar, executive chef of Michaeline’s on West Alabama, 1512 West Alabama, (713)527-8554. Q. What sort of Thanksgiving menu would make you feel truly thankful at the end of the meal? A. I’d always be thankful for foie gras with a plum sauce, litchi and…
The French Connection
A Six-Part History of Tex-Mex In the good old days, Texans went to “Mexican Restaurants” and ate “Mexican food.” Then in 1972, The Cuisines of Mexico, an influential cookbook by food authority Diana Kennedy drew the line between authentic interior Mexican food and the “mixed plates” we ate at “so-called…
Plymouth Rock
Just about every city in Texas has its own Stevie Ray-style guitarslinger or an alternative act that’s sure to be the next big thing. Most cities also have that commercially adaptive pop act that’ll get a major record deal only to watch it fizzle within a year or two. In…
Stirred and Shaken
The rose-colored marble bar and the small tables in front of it form a cozy nook under an enormous painting of a voluptuous reclining lobster at Pesce [3029 Kirby Drive, (713)522-4858]. The redhead and I take a seat at the short end of the bar, in front of a hard-boiled…
Volume, Volume, Volume
There was a time when the only people truly into Corrosion of Conformity were those weirdo lefties. They looked funny, weren’t from around these parts, were better read than you, and probably cooler than you, too. It was the early and mid-1980s, and COC was busy fusing the hardcore of…
On the Off-Road Again
At an age when most performers think about retirement, not artistic redefinitions, Ray Price may have yet one more career makeover left in him. This is, after all, the man who in the 1950s defied the country establishment by daring to add drums to his sound, and who later horrified…
Speed of Light
The scalpel plunged deep into Doug’s lower back, exposing the spine. There it was — the slipped disc, a wafer of bone popped out of alignment. The surgeons spent a few hours manipulating that sucker, securing it back where it belonged. Then they turned Doug over and cut into the…
War Zone
There’s been a war brewing in Houston for a while now — a quiet war, but a war nonetheless. It’s a battle between two different areas, two different cultures, two different worlds. The downtown nightlife scene vs. the Richmond-Westheimer entertainment scene. The sophisticated vs. the rowdy. The snobs vs. the…
RiceTec Paddy Whack
As international trade protests go, Alvin, Texas was no Seattle. The demonstration was scheduled for 3:30 on a Thursday afternoon in late October, and if any locals were unemployed at that hour, they were certainly not standing at the intersection of FM 2403 and FM 2917 in front of the…
Godsmack
With Awake, Godsmack takes a sharp turn off the hard-rock road that it barreled down on its self-titled debut disc. The new album gives every indication that Godsmack has the potential to be a wake-up call to the lame-ass legion of hard rock/metal bands that are borrowing the sounds of…
Taking Credit
Facing a first-degree felony theft indictment, Florence Myra Strom accepted her criminal defense attorney’s advice to file for bankruptcy in 1998. Strom furnished her financial information and signed various forms. She told of complying with another request from her attorney, Patricia Anne O’Kane: turn over her credit cards and car,…
Limp Bizkit
Following up on the monster success of Significant Other, which has sold more than six million copies to date, Limp Bizkit has just released what may be the strangest and most intriguingly titled album of the year, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. Significant Other brought us such…
Back at the Trough
The residents of Houston have finally come to their senses and precluded the Rockets from moving to Poughkeepsie (and it won’t cost us a dime!). The 98 percent who can’t afford the king’s ransom Les Alexander will be asking for tickets look forward to jostling for some of those cheap…
Guy Forsyth
The cover art of Austin blues-rock multi-instrumentalist Guy Forsyth’s release Steak accurately portrays the music within. A beaming Forsyth, done up to look like a ’50s über dad (goober dad?), is being served an enormous raw hunk o’ meat by a June Cleaveresque mother as their hyper-happy children look on…
Street Scenes
The Urban Jungle Challenge Are you a survivor? Can you handle the real life experience of living in the “urban jungle” of Houston for 2 nights and 2 days with nothing but the clothes on your back, your most basic IDs and $5 — food and shelter to be discovered?…
Bubbha Thomas
Houston drummer Bubbha Thomas lays down such a deep groove that you could find it in a hurricane. The consummate power stickman, Thomas cracks the snare with such intensity that it articulates each beat with a palpable force. Yet his cymbal work is almost airy. There are two cuts on…
Potty Training
If the leaves are falling and there’s a nip in the air, that can mean only one thing: The Houston Chronicle is once again bemoaning the Fall of Western Civilization, a fall entirely brought on by dirty TV shows. Longtime television critic Ann Hodges hasn’t let us down this year…
Playbill
With all its mala suerte seemingly behind it, Austin’s Vallejo was finally able to release its major-label debut, Into the New, earlier this year and get back to what it does best: kick out some Latino-influenced jams. Although a few too many rough edges were smoothed down by the time…
Strangers in the Night
“Baby Got Back” blared from the speakers at the Hard Rock Café last Thursday night. A line of people who spent way too much time on their hair stretched from the gift shop (where they surprisingly still sell outdated ’80s Hard Rock Café t-shirts) around the entire bar, as Houston’s…
Playbill
Ask any jazz musician to name the finest guitarists in Houston, and Mike Wheeler’s name is likely to be on the list. A Bayou City native who played with the likes of Jimmy Ford and Arnett Cobb when he was breaking on the scene, Wheeler is a bebop player in…
Letters
Mental Health Madness Pained over priorities: What a sad state of affairs for the mentally ill that need these services [“Catch Us If You Can,” by Brian Wallstin and Margaret Downing, November 9]. Readers should be made aware that just because you are not insured doesn’t mean you are indigent…
Soul Survivor
Unbreakable is such a quiet film that whenever a character speaks above a whisper, it sounds like the shattering of glass in a monastery. It’s also a terribly sad movie; almost no one cracks a smile or a joke, and everyone wears the look of someone who’s just spent the…
Left Stone Cold
Branded as everything from “the anti-Woodstock” to “the end of the hippie dream,” the Rolling Stones’s ill-fated free concert at Altamont Speedway in 1969 is an entrenched part of rock lore. That’s largely due to the stabbing death of an 18-year-old black man, murdered at the hands of Hell’s Angels…
Quite a Spread
Given the stress and emotional turmoil associated with family holidays, in the cinema as in life, it’s very peculiar that anyone feels obliged to entertain the notion of Thanksgiving anymore. Really, thanks for what exactly? Jammed freeways? Delayed flights? Overcrowded supermarkets? Big, dead birds? Witch hunts? Territorial conquest and genocide?…
To Protect and Serve Art
It turns out the Houston Police Department did William Steen and his young artists a favor when some misguided cops whitewashed the exterior wall of his studio in July [see “Murals and the Mind Police,” July 20]. Of the $6,000 HPD shelled out as an apology, $4,000 will fund the…
The Women’s Rooms
The last thing I want to be called is a woman artist,” says Annette Wilzig. The remark may seem like an attempt to distance herself from her gender, but it’s not. “Woman artist” can sound a lot like “woman driver.” Wilzig is reacting to the tendency to make gender, race,…
Hitchin’ the Wagon
Dreams come in all sizes, even dreams of opening a restaurant. The cost of some start-ups can reach sums in the seven figures; others boast more modest numbers. Tamar Levy, a 31-year-old single mother, and her steady boyfriend Alex Perez have set up shop on Montrose Boulevard, north of West…
Unhappy Days
Samuel Beckett’s Winnie is one of literature’s most compelling female characters. Aging, lonely and buried to her waist in the scorched, suffocating earth, she somehow manages to carry on “in the old way,” with a smile on her face and with enough grace to be grateful for the smallest gift…