Unchecked Egos
Love Spit Love’s Richard Butler has to be one of the vainest frontmen in rock — not in the sillier sense of the term (a la, say, David Lee Roth), but in a far more tasteful and stern way. That makes him a particularly intriguing study in engorged ego. Diamond…
Rotation
The Hollisters The Land of Rhythm and Pleasure Freedom Nationally, many consider Austin to be the hub of alternative country. But The Land of Rhythm and Pleasure, the long-awaited debut CD from the Hollisters, just might be the release Houston has needed to put itself on the alt-country map. It…
Rap Gets Puffy
Puff Daddy & the Family’s No Way Out is as stunningly slack a piece of work as has ever been issued by a major rap act. Puff Daddy, born Sean Combs, has one of the weakest verbal flows of all time: He mouths wan rhymes in a pinched, charisma-free monotone…
Static
Rock’s on the rocks… In a meeting last Thursday, Rockefeller’s brass advised its staff that the club would be pulling up stakes permanently at the end of the year. That sobering revelation shouldn’t come as much of a shock to anyone who’s been frequenting the venue over the last few…
Cajun Pride
Not so fondly, BeauSoleil founder Michael Doucet reflects on what it was like to be a fiddle-wielding ambassador of Cajun music and culture two decades ago. “I’ll tell you something … it was a bad scene,” Doucet says. “I mean, it was just not being accepted. We had a grant,…
Scottish Modern
Using surreal staging and costumes in operatic productions can be a risky business. Sometimes the results are appealing; sometimes they’re appalling. In the case of Houston Grand Opera’s new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth, the results are decidedly mixed. At times the staging enhances the production, but more often it…
Street of Dreams
Houston theater is, for the most part, conservative. Of course we get the strange imports from New York City and Los Angeles, but our homegrown theater — smart and lovely though it may be — is pretty tame. We might have the once-in-a-while nude scene, or a play about last…
Too Much Magic
The true-life incident of the Cottingley fairies is so full of possibilities, so thought-provoking and hilarious at once, that it’s amazing it’s never been the subject of a film before. Now, making up for lost time, the story has suddenly appeared (on its 80th anniversary) as the basis for two…
Respectable Street
Jennifer Jason Leigh follows up one of her smallest, and weakest, roles — in A Thousand Acres — with a far more challenging, and formidable, performance in Washington Square. This new film version of Henry James’s 1880 novel chronicles the courtship of a wealthy girl with no obvious attractive qualities…
Cliche-spotting
Stylishness without substance can become wearying fast. Twenty minutes into A Life Less Ordinary, the new movie from the producing/directing/writing team that created Trainspotting and Shallow Grave, I was already into overload. It’s not that director Danny Boyle doesn’t have imagination. It’s just that sometimes imagination is all he has…
Undiscovered Country
A few things we’ve learned as the November 4 election draws nigh, pertinent information that may be overlooked by the League of Women Voters: (1) It’s all over between Helen Huey and Bob Lanier. Six months ago, Huey was calling Lanier “one of the best this city has ever seen.”…
The Insider
One Publisher, One Vote Readers of the Chronicle’s October 19 editorial backing Rob Mosbacher Jr. for mayor may have noticed that the paper’s endorsement was hardly, how shall we put it, ringing. There may be a good reason for that apparent lack of conviction, other than a general inability to…
Letters
Teed Off In the “Golfin’ Fools” article [by Bob Burtman, October 2] you say, “… of all the private operators running city courses, BSL is widely acknowledged to have done the best job.” I keep hearing this, but I don’t understand it. We are not talking about putting a man…
After the Crash
Joe Lychner heard the call-waiting beep and clicked over. It was his mother-in-law: Did Pam and the girls get on the plane? Yeah, said Joe. Pam called from JFK. Oh my God, she said. A TWA flight went down. He turned on CNN, and saw Flight 800 burning in the…
Press Picks
thursday october 23 Robert Schimmel One evening after Robert Schimmel had finished his standup routine, an old lady came up and told him, “I liked you up there [on stage]. You remind me of my son.” “Your son? Who is your son?” Schimmel asked. “Lenny Bruce,” she said. It wasn’t…
Hotel Haute
With a few rare exceptions, chain hotels are not places you’d expect to find fine cuisine. Chains are too often eyeing the bottom line; as a result, their dining rooms typically offer bland food. And yet here I was among the potted plants of the Radisson Town and Country, a…
Survival Instinct
“It’s the same old story,” says Lisa Morales curtly, cringing as she shrugs off the tattered flier that’s just been thrust in front of her face for comment. The sheet of paper — almost two years old — announces in a flourish of fancy type and confetti-like dabs of gold…