Re: The Adventures of John Lomax and the Walk Down Westheimer
The 12-mile reprise of the original 16 mile trek down Westheimer was a big success. We raised a few hundred bucks for the Houston Musician’s Benevolent Society and had a great time, and the crisp weather made it that much easier to complete. Some time in the Spring, we might…
Party On, Coogs
For a cynical, self-hating UH alum, yesterday was a pretty special day. The City of Houston held a pep rally for the Coogs, who’ve won the Conference USA title and are now headed to the Liberty Bowl. (Many fans at the rally at City Hall held up signs that said…
Party On, Coogs
For a cynical, self-hating UH alum, yesterday was a pretty special day. The City of Houston held a pep rally for the Coogs, who’ve won the Conference USA title and are now headed to the Liberty Bowl. (Many fans at the rally at City Hall held up signs that said…
Darden Smith Playbill
I’d heard of Darden Smith for years but never seen him or given him a fair listen. His reputation preceded him; my impression was of a wan, mopey, earnest, trying-so-hard-to-be-meaningful balladeer. That all changed when I got a dose of Sunflower (2002). It certainly wasn’t party music, but Smith definitely…
Re: A’anya Cantley Update
Read Craig Malisow’s breaking coverage of the A’anya Cantley story here. We were finally able to get a copy of the Keeshauner Cantley show-cause hearing from the Harris County Attorney’s office this morning. It reveals that A’anya’s five-year-old brother previously suffered a fractured ankle, had ringworms, and was withdrawn from…
A’anya Cantley Update
Although the transcript for the show-cause hearing in the case of A’anya Cantley is a public record, we had a heckuva time getting it from, you know, the courthouse. While Child Protective Services policy forbids the agency from directly handing out public records, CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin said she would…
Re: A Child Returns to a Reportedly Abusive Home — and Dies
After the death of A’anya Cantley, Children’s Protective Services spokeswoman Estella Olguin said the child’s attorney ad litem (who also represented A’anya’s five-year-old brother), had recommended the children be returned to their mother. “We were involved before and we had our concerns about these children going back to this home,…
YuleTube
The holidays are a special time for family and friends to come together in a show of magical unity and optimism. The whole human race becomes as one with a sense of childlike wonderment and admiration for all fellow men. But for a few musician dirt bags, it’s a time…
I’m Sorry, Enrique Iglesias
Does this guy look “extra small” to you? It was a harmless little joke between two guys who were getting along. A joke that went horribly, horribly wrong. Last year, I briefly interviewed (scroll down) heart throb Enrique Iglesias when he came to town to promote his new cologne, True…
I’m Sorry, Enrique Iglesias
Does this guy look “extra small” to you? It was a harmless little joke between two guys who were getting along. A joke that went horribly, horribly wrong. Last year, I briefly interviewed (scroll down) heart throb Enrique Iglesias when he came to town to promote his new cologne, True…
Houston Man Needs Kidney, Stat!
All he wants for Christmas is one of these… If you listened to Sam Malone on 740 KTRH this morning, you no doubt heard about Butch Morgan and his kidney. Seems that if you drive down I-10 East, right at Yale (between 610 and 45), you’ll see Morgan’s billboard. It’s…
Cougars Spotted Downtown
Courtesy of UH Sports Information Let’s hope it’s not too cold for Kevin Kolb to show. In case you hadn’t heard (or you’re an angry UT fan and thus, don’t care), there’s a big downtown pep rally for the UH Coogs at noon outside City Hall (901 Bagby). If it’s…
Cougars Spotted Downtown
Courtesy of UH Sports Information Let’s hope it’s not too cold for Kevin Kolb to show. In case you hadn’t heard (or you’re an angry UT fan and thus, don’t care), there’s a big downtown pep rally for the UH Coogs at noon outside City Hall (901 Bagby). If it’s…
Jesus, That Guy Is Everywhere…
Jesus of the Week You think this is phat, you should see the Saviour’s Escalade. This week’s cover story is all about Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda, a former heroin addict who claims he’s Jesus Christ. But that story was far from the first sighting of the Big Man. In…
Father Tu’s Holy Mess
Last week, a Dallas County court released 700 pages of personnel files from the Fort Worth Diocese pertaining to priests who had been accused of sexual misconduct. Inadvertently, 16 pages related to Father Joseph Tu Ngoc Nguyen (“Father Tu”) were also released. Tu was reassigned to Houston from an Arlington…
Keeping Up with Dr. Brown
Brown’s now forbidden to get this close to 50 percent of his kids. When we last left renowned hand surgeon-cum-wife-beater Dr. Michael Brown, he had lost his medical license for failing a drug test. But his woes did not end there: On November 7, a Harris County judge granted a…
Great Moments of the Coogs’ Win
Richard Connelly When’s the last time a crowd rushed Robertson Stadium for a Coogs title victory? Yeah, it’s been that long. Anyone want to hear about the pregame activities that went down before the Conference USA championship game? Forget about it, unless you want to hear about traffic tie-ups and…
Great Moments of the Coogs’ Win
Richard Connelly When’s the last time a crowd rushed Robertson Stadium for a Coogs title victory? Yeah, it’s been that long. Anyone want to hear about the pregame activities that went down before the Conference USA championship game? Forget about it, unless you want to hear about traffic tie-ups and…
Relive Today’s Game Tomorrow
Courtesy of UH Sports Information Connelly will break down Kolb and Co. tomorrow. Coogs fans, we’ll see you at the game in a few. And tomorrow morning, be sure to check out Richard Connelly’s game wrapup. (Extra props for Rich for working on a Saturday.) Stay tuned, and go Coogs!…
Relive Today’s Game Tomorrow
Courtesy of UH Sports Information Connelly will break down Kolb and Co. tomorrow. Coogs fans, we’ll see you at the game in a few. And tomorrow morning, be sure to check out Richard Connelly’s game wrapup. (Extra props for Rich for working on a Saturday.) Stay tuned, and go Coogs!…
Q&A with Football U
Traitor, er, pundit Connelly shares his knowledge with another blog. Apparently, we’re not the only ones who have the privilege of Richard Connelly’s college football insight. Our Football U. prognosticator recently broke today’s UH game down with fellow pigskin blogger Sunday Morning Quarterback. One thing caught our eye from the…
Q&A with Football U
Traitor, er, pundit Connelly shares his knowledge with another blog. Apparently, we’re not the only ones who have the privilege of Richard Connelly’s college football insight. Our Football U. prognosticator recently broke today’s UH game down with fellow pigskin blogger Sunday Morning Quarterback. One thing caught our eye from the…
Football U: Go Coogs!
Bengals.com David Klingler killed at UH, then went to the NFL and, um, got killed. In this week’s edition of Football U., pundit Richard Connelly gets the start as John Lomax rests for tomorrow’s walk. Championship Game fever is in the air!! Can you feel it? Probably not. But don’t…
Football U: Go Coogs!
Bengals.com David Klingler killed at UH, then went to the NFL and, um, got killed. In this week’s edition of Football U., pundit Richard Connelly gets the start as John Lomax rests for tomorrow’s walk. Championship Game fever is in the air!! Can you feel it? Probably not. But don’t…
Update: A Child Returns to a Reportedly Abusive Home — and Dies
The CPS caseworker assigned to Keeshauner Cantley’s two children could not find the family in the days after Judge Jim York returned the kids to their mother’s home, according to the caseworker’s affidavit. On November 16, the caseworker stated: “a relative [of the mother] informed me that Ms. Cantley and…
The Adventures of John Lomax and the Walk Down Westheimer
Walk on, folks. The weather should be perfect. As promised, this Saturday, we will be reprising the Great Slog down Broad Majestic Westheimer as chronicled in this story here. Well, in part anyway — I’m told that we cannot all trudge together along this busy thoroughfare out where there are…
So you’re a Harris County
So you’re a Harris County Family Court Judge, and Children’s Protective Services brings this case to you on October 19: There’s a 20-month old girl with second-degree burns on her upper back and a first-degree burn on her right cheek. The burns are from about two weeks earlier. She’s also…
Young Jeezy’s Party Is Off the Heezy
Jeezy and Manny Fresh get their picture took. It’s 8:30 p.m. in a crowded studio and the Snowman is nowhere to be seen. It’s his V.I.P. record listening party and I, the sole white dude, stick out like a sore thumb. As with any rap function, nothing is going as…
Young Jeezy’s Party Is Off the Heezy
Jeezy and Manny Fresh get their picture took. It’s 8:30 p.m. in a crowded studio and the Snowman is nowhere to be seen. It’s his V.I.P. record listening party and I, the sole white dude, stick out like a sore thumb. As with any rap function, nothing is going as…
UH Filmmakers: Such Cheeky Monkeys!
Courtesy of Joseph Ross, Maria Rivas, Nicolas Galan, Jennifer Roasa, V. Angelo Mazzei A three-minute Alien Affair, eh? There’s a punchline in there somewheres… There’s a general nightmare that plagues just about every guy in any kind of relationship: Dude comes home, girlfriend or wife is out, and our hero…
Macon Greyson
When Ray Wylie Hubbard was recording young Buddy Huffman in an Austin studio with the cream of pickers that town has to offer, Huffman was already thinking about forming a band to play the songs and promote the record. He asked Hubbard what to call the band and the Wylie…
Peter Gallagher (and his eyebrows) Want to Save You from the Flu
Morgan Johnston/Ward Creative Communications That hair. Those eyebrows. That devil-may-care grin. Influenza doesn’t stand a chance! The American Lung Association is on tour throughout the country, promoting an influenza program, oddly named “Faces of Influenza” (kind of reminds us of the gruesome ’80s shockumentary, Faces of Death). But one of…
Son of Man
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free our minds. — Bob Marley, “Redemption Song,” 1980 I don’t want to fight / Let’s go fly a kite. — Ziggy Marley, “Love is My Religion,” 2006 Ziggy Marley’s got quite a yoke to carry. His father, after all,…
Wabs and Gabachos on Leprecanos
Many kind, drunken words from ustedes regarding my Nov. 16 column proclaiming Mexicans and Irish “brothers in depravity.” Let’s start with a wab: Man, did you make me laugh with “leprecanos.” I never had more fun on Cinco de Mayo than I did in 1974 in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, mick…
A Blighted Slough of Smells, Steel and Chemicals
Houston is a sprawling disaster of a city, possibly the most repulsive metropolis I’ve ever seen.” So says “John” from mysterious D.C. punk band Aghast on his blog Mundane Arcana. And that’s just among dozens of tour diaries out there on the Web today, some in awe of our fair…
School Daze
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Platform: PlayStation 2
Price: $40
ESRB Rating: Teen
Score: 8.5 (out of 10)
Smoke Signals
Indian Jewelry’s Tex Kerschen, Erika Thrasher, Rodney Rodriguez and Brandon Davidson all used to call Houston home. But then they also used to call themselves a variety of names — Swarm of Angels, Corpses of Waco, Turquoise Diamonds and NTX + Electric, among the most popular. The members of Indian…
Extra! Read All About It
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (Warner Bros.) At long last, Richard Donner’s much-whispered-about “original version” of Superman II sees the light of day, and it quickly joins the ranks of the reconstructed Touch of Evil, Apocalypse Now, and Blade Runner as films made superior in the recutting and retelling…
Where Do You Buy Your Hair?
Reporters are nosy people. That’s what they pay us for. That’s what we scored highest on on our vocational aptitude tests — minding other people’s business. Some reporters, like the ones who discover Firestone tires blow up or that carrots give you cancer of the hair, save people’s lives by…
Our top DVD picks for the week of November 30
The Ant Bully (Warner Bros.) Criminal Minds: The First Season (Paramount) Dane Cook: Vicious Circle (HBO) The Ellen DeGeneres Show: DVD-licious (Warner Bros.) Foo Fighters: Skin and Bones (RCA) Hot Wheels Accelerators: The Ultimate Race (Warner Bros.) Joan of Arcadia: The Second Season (Paramount) Jamie Kennedy’s Blowin’ Up (Paramount) Little…
Cred Sheet
File this one under “Stuff you need to know about to avoid musical ostracism.” Cred Sheet is a periodic gauge of cultural stimuli for those unwilling or unable to think about this shit for a living 24/7. (Note: These people are most often smarter and better compensated than those who…
Some Kind of Wonderful
Twelve-year-old Cheyenne James laughs when I ask her what she knows about sorrow and misery. “How do you sing ‘At Last’ with all the heartbreak that you do, and you haven’t even had a boyfriend yet?” “Every time I hear a song, I see it like a music video going…
Chipinque Cuisine
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 11 a.m. 10 p.m. Sundays.
Crab quesadillas: $12.95
Fajita enchiladas: $11.95
Chile relleno: $12.95
Snapper with crabmeat: $28.95
Mates of State
It’s safe to say that rock duo Mates of State’s Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel have the market cornered in the vocal-driven, dreamy-pop-ditty department. The husband/wife team blends soaring harmonies and churns out lyrics that read like modern poetry. They accompany their musings with a 1971 Electone organ (played by…
DRINK HOUSTON
If you’re white and you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to feel extremely Caucasian, look no further than the dance floor at 8.0 Retro, a McClub that’s a part of Drink Houston (7620 Katy Fwy., 713-290-0041). I’m meeting up here on a Saturday night with two friends, Craig and Dorothy,…
Corb Lund & the Hurtin’ Albertans
Ever see one of those openers that just blows your hair back? Corb Lund is a bona fide populist country-rock star in Canada, rolling across the prairies like a cash-gathering machine, playing to sold-out auditoriums and concert halls. Both of Lund’s latest records, $5 Bill and Hair in my Eyes…
Think Tanked
In 2003, a bunch of New Yorkers started Drinking Liberally as a less formal place to talk politics. There’d be no committees or leaflets or even any issues in specific to address. There’d just be beer and the company of people who think like you do. Since then, 170 chapters…
Parts and Labor
Parts and Labor’s last Houston show was a bust — let down by everyone involved, the Brooklyn trio ended up going on at midnight in front of about ten people. With nothing to gain, they nonetheless played as if their lives depended on it. It was a joyously terrifying experience…
This Man Thinks He’s Jesus H. Christ!
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. — Thessalonians 5:2 If Jesus Christ came back and walked among us, what would it take for you to believe it was Him? Would the moon have to turn red for you…
Circle Jerks
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Los Angeles was a mecca for hardcore music, and Circle Jerks was at the top of the heap. Formed in 1979 by Black Flag vocalist Keith Morris and Redd Kross guitarist Greg Hetson, along with bassist Roger Rogerson and drummer Lucky Lehrer, the…
PORK TO GO
Two slices of homemade sourdough bread smeared with ancho chile mayo and pickled red onions accompany the pork tenderloin sandwich ($8.50) at Picnic (1928 Bissonnet, 713-524-0201). These ingredients go perfectly with the house-roasted pork loin, which is both tender and tasty, with the occasional flavor of caramelized skin. The boxed-lunch…
Dog Fancy
When it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Bobcat Goldthwait’s Stay, now rebranded as Sleeping Dogs Lie for some inexplicable reason, was the talk of Park City, Utah, before anyone had even seen the movie. Based on pre-screening buzz, most folks figured the movie — shot on digital…
The Passion of the Christ: A Very Special Episode
No, the Virgin Mary doesn’t get high on aerosol fumes, and Joseph doesn’t ride in on a skateboard, but in most other respects, The Nativity Story is less of a departure for Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown director Catherine Hardwicke than one would have imagined. From our first glimpse of…
Talk of the Town
Apocalyptic, strange and wonderfully entertaining, Lisa D’Amour’s Hide Town, created with company members from Infernal Bridegroom Productions, is everything experimental theater should be. Thoughtful and funny, the one-act speeds across a futuristic landscape covered in snow and darkness. No matter that this is Hide Town, Texas — all the sweltering…
Capsule Reviews
Barbra’s Wedding Anyone who’s seen Home Alone will recognize Daniel Stern, who’s best known as an actor. But now the thin, curly-haired Stern has ventured into scriptwriting, and his first play is a lot like the comedies he’s known for. The mildly amusing Barbra’s Wedding imagines what it must have…
Conflict of Interest
The race to replace Shelley Sekula-Gibbs on the City Council — as if anybody could — has its first candidate. His bio? Four years in the Air Force as an intelligence analyst and “Catholic Programs Coordinator”; stints in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, the George H.W. Bush Library in…
Migrants and Minutemen
“The Minutemen are doing exactly what President George W. Bush requested all citizens do in his State of the Union speech” says “Bob,” a middle-aged Minuteman sporting a safari-esque khaki shirt and hat. “Here’s what he said: ‘I call on all Americans to be ever vigilant and to report any…
Missing them Margs
“Home” run: Reading your article on margaritas made me nostalgic for my old haunt, Chuy’s [“Viva la Margarita!” by Robb Walsh, November 16]. As a transplanted New Mexican in Houston, Chuy’s was my trip “home” when I couldn’t get there. I would drive miles to eat at Chuy’s (I lived…
Capsule Reviews
“Andy Moses: Vuelta” Andy Moses’s work looks like interstellar plein-air paintings — sunrises and sunsets from some other planet. Using pearlescent pigments, Moses creates luminous bands of color by what appears to be a combination of pouring and squeegee-ing; the lines of color, which lean toward deep cobalt blues and…