Eating It Up
When Brent Best was finally ready to pick up a guitar and start messing with the songs rattling around in his 16-year-old head, he had already survived infatuations with Rush and R.E.M. By then, it was the bar-band rock of Jason and the Scorchers that served as his primary inspiration…
Splendid Isolation
His hair is close-cropped for the first time in years, and his gray T-shirt is snug around a trim torso. He wears blue jeans and reflecting sunglasses that hide bright eyes revealed only when he slides on his regular spectacles. As he walks through the front door of an empty…
Static
Gangsta rap, R.I.P.? The ripples from the death of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas last month continue to roll out, with more than a few critics latching onto Shakur’s shooting as added evidence (if any were needed) that gangsta rap is headed toward its own funeral. For years, critics have…
Wry Fidelity
What sort of mischief can a smart, painfully self-conscious band from England stir up when it mixes a love of the trance-inducing experimentation of German bands such as Faust and Neu! with a decidedly less hip weakness for everything from Muzak to Farfisa organ to stereo-testing LPs? Actually, a fusion…
Sound Check
There was a time not long ago when the only religious figure to have any clout in rock and roll was the devil, when decent, church-going folks wanted nothing to do with his primordial rhythms. Rock was nasty business, and its practitioners at least a few sins over the Lord’s…
Irish Republican Angst
To his credit, Neil Jordan never attempts to disguise his sympathies in Michael Collins, his forlorn epic of blood and thunder. This sweeping historical drama about the man who led Ireland from the debacle of the Easter Uprising to the birth of the Irish Free State is never less than…
No Contest
Though on the surface it’s a play about evolution, what Inherit the Wind, the Jerome Lawrence/Robert E. Lee work based on the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, is really about is freedom of thought and the value of ideas, especially ideas that cut across deeply ingrained religious principles. And like any…
Larding the Bard
The movie is respectfully titled William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, but don’t expect anything like a traditional interpretation of the Bard. In fact, the latest big-screen adaptation of the 400-year-old tragedy may well be the most exuberantly muddled update of a classic work since someone decided to transform The Pirates…
Amazon Arias
When Houston Grand Opera commissioned Mexican composer Daniel Catan to produce Florencia en el Amazonas, HGO director David Gockley envisioned a work in Spanish that would capture the culture and flavor of South America. He also said he wanted a work that would be the most beautiful opera created in…
Opposing Counsel
Sylvia Garcia and Mike Fleming, the two picture-perfect candidates for Harris County attorney, settled into their chairs opposite the anchors for KTRH-AM’s Hotline. Democrat Garcia, vying to become the first Hispanic elected to a countywide post, faced off against Republican Fleming, a jut-jawed former assistant county attorney. Even off the…
Frill a Minute
In the telling of his stories, Dr. Seuss often got wonderfully distracted. He dosed on long riffs of nonsense, gobbledygook that sounded good even as it hid a message, strange catalogs of oh! the places you’ll go and the things you will see. And what the doctor did with words,…
DisUnion
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ takeover of Local 988 last November had that certain tabloid quality that has been associated with the union for decades. Jim Buck, the trustee appointed by International president Ron Carey to manage the local’s affairs, arrived unannounced at the union’s Heights-area hall with the bad…
Back to the Classics
This spring, when customers wandered into the venerable Massa’s in search of a fix of time-honored Gulf Coast fare, what they got instead was a shock. There on a menu that should have boasted little that wasn’t fried and familiar were such items as Maqac Chow, pickled okra prepared in…
Texas Chainsaw Documentary
An innocent girl and her doomed date walk apprehensively through a dark wood. There’s been car trouble, and they need help. The trembling pair find a lonely farmhouse, and then — well, you know the story, or the gist of such stories. This particular scene is from Return of the…
Fanned
Drayton McLane set his first deadline a year ago: Houston, he announced in dramatic fashion, had two weeks to prove it was worthy of a major league baseball franchise. McLane set three conditions for the Astros’ continued presence here: a new retractable-roof dome financed with public money, the purchase of…
Kingwood RFD
Somebody asked me a few weeks ago: Have you ever been to Kingwood? I had to think. I had passed by Kingwood many times while on my way up Highway 59, but to the very best of my recollection I had never ventured into Kingwood proper. I hesitate to make…
The Insider
Send Money or Face the Wrath of a Vengeful God Steven Hotze has been a very busy political impresario this election season. Of the 50,500 requests for mail ballots the Harris County Clerk’s office had received as of last Monday, at least 17,000 arrived on forms distributed by Hotze’s Conservative…
Letters
Timmy, the Devil’s Son-in-Law Timmy, I want to thank you for the neat picture of the barbecue in The Insider of October 17 [“Strange Bedfellows, Strange Sheets”]. You have provided confirmation once again, to all intelligent life, just how stupid and biased the written media can be. I feel certain…
Press Picks
thursday october 31 Halloween haunts Oh, which to choose? Dr. Darke asks, “What’s more frightening than reality?” but no, he’s not going to make you balance your checkbook. Phobia — the Darke Institute (2720 Southwest Freeway, 526-DEAD, $7-$10) instead preys on your fears and fascinations with things hairy, slimy and…
Dish
Location, Location … Is there such a thing as a restaurant location jinx? If you look at what’s passed through 3009 Post Oak Boulevard, you might think so. Though Don’s, the proto-Landry restaurant, had a long and successful run in the spot, in recent years those calling the address home…