Achtung, Baby
TUE 12/2 In 1931, Germany was announced as the host of the 1936 Olympics. But by the time the games rolled around, there had been huge changes in the country. The Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler had come to power, pursuing an agenda that hardly reflected a unified world spirit.But…
The S-Word
Bad Santa, in which Billy Bob Thornton plays a drunken department-store Santa who repeatedly swears at children, pisses himself publicly, chain-smokes like an industrial plant and cracks safes on Christmas Eve, is the least sentimental holiday release ever made. No one is redeemed, no one comes to believe in the…
MARTA Meets Metro
SUN 11/30 Are Atlantans and Houstonians rivals? Well, they had Lee Brown, police chief; we had Lee Brown, mayor. They have TLC; we have Destiny’s Child. They’re a big Southern town that Sherman burned to the ground; we’re a big Southern town where you find Nat Sherman butts on the…
Comics From the Front
Maybe you know the feeling. Maybe it struck you one morning as you stared in the mirror before trundling off to the job you hate, or maybe it hit you so hard one night it woke you from your sleep like a prowler in the bedroom. It’s that feeling of:…
Mars on Earth
Now that Mars has receded slightly into the night sky following its closest brush with Earth in 60,000 years, you may find that you and your family miss its comforting nearness. The Houston Space Center has stepped in to fill the red void with its new exhibit, “Mars, The Race…
What the Dickens?
Poor Charles Dickens. He must spend six weeks of every year spinning in his English grave. Each holiday, A Christmas Carol, one of his most charming creations, gets butchered. Take, for example, Fred Spielman, Janice Torre and Don Wilson’s Scrooge, The Stingiest Man in Town, now running at The Masquerade…
Hip-hop Honky-Tonk
FRI 11/28 If you’re hearing the call of the islands, it may be coming from closer than you think. There’s a tropical oasis in the Third Ward, and it’s emerging as a Friday hotspot for fans of Houston’s underground MCs.Every Friday, the Reggae Bodega showcases homegrown hip-hop in addition to…
Incest Is Wrong
Art purists may say, “Why do a show about football?” predicted Museum of Fine Arts, Houston director Peter Marzio, standing in front of a 20-foot diptych of photos depicting buxom, scantily clad cheerleaders at the press preview of “First Down Houston: The Birth of an NFL Franchise.” The exhibition presents…
Oh, Say Can You See
SUN 11/30 The Star Spangles are just begging to be scoffed at. One look at the New York punksters’ new CD, Bazooka!!!, and right off the bat, there’s fodder in their pretentious, well-slept-in haircuts and their cover mimicking the Rolling Stones’ 12 X 5 album shot. Still, as Stones bassist…
Turkeys of the Year
The onset of the holiday season always brings a rush of warm feelings, of giving thanks for the blessings that have been bestowed on us all year. For some people, at least. For us it brings on an end-of-the-year accounting of all the things that have tripped our trigger, made…
Stinky Food
Chicken with basil$6.75
Fried funky bean curd$3.25
Salt-baked pepper shrimp $8.50
Marinated seaweed$1.50
Mussels$9.95
Non-Endangered Soup
There’s little chance that the turtle soup ($7.50) at Brennan’s (3300 Smith, 713-522-9711) will lose its revered spot on the menu, considering it’s the restaurant’s most popular dish. The soup offers a complex series of tastes, painstakingly constructed, layer upon layer, by chef Carl Walker. At its base, there’s a…
Fade to Black
It’s not easy getting into Jay-Z’s recording home at Bassline Studios, tucked away on West 26th Street in Manhattan. I have to sneak in behind a woman walking into the building, take an elevator to the eighth floor, then knock on a pair of glass doors before a security guard…
Quit Loafing!
Not that he’s being difficult, but the fact remains that former Archers of Loaf front man Eric Bachmann is giving a pretty crappy interview. He mumbles, talks too fast at times, too softly at others, and seems distracted throughout. With good reason, as it happens. “We had a rough night…
Rize-ing to the Occasion
A long time ago, before the major labels got ahold of him, Dwele recorded a tune about the history of his erection. Aptly titled “Down Jimmy,” the song found the Detroit-born kid chronicling the great khaki-rising moments of his life. There was his eighth-grade English teacher in that dark black…
Stealth Statue
So far, the elder George Bush Statue Project has been shrouded in secrecy befitting a guy who used to run the CIA. The formal city proposal even includes instructions in all capital letters to keep it hushed up until there is final approval: “…AND IT CAN BE ANNOUNCED IN AN…
Computer Error
Slowly but surely, the Web site www.allmusic.com has become the permanent record your teachers always warned you about, the Encyclopedia Britannica of popular music. If you’re a music scribe or other music professional or a dedicated fan, this free site is the first place you look to verify album titles…
Pied Piper of the Pissed Off
The crowd at Miller Outdoor Theatre could best be described, to use the language of rally speaker and self-proclaimed “Dean Ranger” Torrey Offley, as “pissed off.” Pissed off about the war in Iraq and its bloody, expensive aftermath; still pissed off about the outcome of that 2000 presidential election decided…
Jaylib
In case you haven’t heard, this is Madlib’s year. Stones Throw Records’ workaholic beat man has got more hustles going this year than Timbaland and the Neptunes combined. He released the Blue Note Records remix compilation, Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note, produced tracks for the debuts of Wildchild…
Bridging the Gap
The Houston Audubon Society has been one of several groups seeking to block the massive Bayport project in a lengthy and bitter lawsuit involving the Port of Houston Authority. That’s why Audubon executive director Joy Hester was more than a little curious when she heard in September that port chairman…
Albert and Gage
Some essentials oft missing in today’s music, both local and worldwide: grace, finesse, authority and the knowledge that in the final tab it’s essentially all about the song (whoever wrote it). Christine Albert and Chris Cage possess those qualities in spades, along with considerable ability and musicality. So even if…
Letters
Breaking Par Big-Time More than a mere game: I would like to thank Wendy Grossman for the wonderful article on Lee High School’s golf team [“Tee Time,” November 13]. I have a friend who teaches at Lee and I hear about the diversity and hardships of many of the students…
Damien Rice
Some may accuse Damien Rice of developing an über-anguished, oh-so-lovelorn repertoire as a ploy to get American college girls into bed (probably not that difficult a feat, really — who can resist that Irish accent?), but others respond to Rice’s dismay with reverence that borders on adoration. For some, Rice…
When Men Were Men
Long before Quentin Tarantino made it fashionable for bag-men to be movie heroes, Eastwood gave us his wiry, take-no-shit drifter in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Sergio Leone’s sprawling, corpse-laden contribution to the spaghetti western genre. The film, first released with an Italian soundtrack in December 1966, was…
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Lord, this boy’s good. Ted Leo’s quick, muscular guitar-pop is just the kind of rock-saving sound my younger self used to believe was bound to be huge any day now. It isn’t, of course, and that’s a goddamned shame. But that don’t mean it won’t feel colossal when the man…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, November 27 Do you think cooking dinner means poking a couple of fork holes into the plastic film covering your frozen entrée before sticking it in the microwave? If so, you might be having second thoughts about whipping up the granddaddy of expectations-laden meals for your family and friends…
Chimaira
On The Impossibility of Reason, Chimaira’s sophomore record for Roadrunner, the band’s songwriting chops have grown — right along with their hair. Gone are the crew cuts, overplaying and rigid feel that characterized 2001’s Pass Out of Existence. In their place are long, scruffy locks, more discernible, immediate tunes and…
Chicken Soup with a Goal
“I believed in Enron.” — Cathy Peterson, Flashlight Walking The end of the year has traditionally been a time for reflection. Veterans Day. Thanksgiving. The December holidays. Recently, two new dates have been added to the list: September 11 and December 3. We all know what happened on September 11,…
Indian Giver
In director Ron Howard’s The Missing, Tommy Lee Jones’s Samuel Jones takes his place among the oldest archetypes in the western genre: the white man who’s lived among the Indians until he’s at last become one. This plot device, used in Hombre and Nevada Smith and myriad other movies, renders…