Sound the Retreat!
During the national emergency early last week, law enforcement agencies were in a state of high alert chasing every possible lead on terrorist activities in Texas and the rest of the country. And more than 140 staff lawyers of the U.S. Attorney’s Southern District of Texas division were also on…
Mean and Masterful
This may be a strange time to release a thriller about the dangers of corrupt law enforcement, but Training Day — with no explosions, no cheap thrills, no international conspiracies — is about as distant from current East Coast realities as possible. Still, that doesn’t mean that it qualifies as…
Follow the Money
It’s old home week at the federal grand jury room, with a panel taking testimony about unusual — and possibly illegal — campaign activities from some very familiar faces. Mary L. Castillo and Elizabeth Zermeno, the wife and chief of staff, respectively, of District I Councilman John Castillo, have been…
White Stripe Fever
A quarter-century after C.W. McCall’s smash novelty single “Convoy,” there’s still a generous spirit out there for our 18-wheeled good buddies. But consider the less catchy flip side of that single, “Long, Lonesome Road,” and its lament of a maddeningly grim and endless horizon. It’s within this uniquely American wasteland…
Letters
Bests and Beefs Raining champs: Dr. Neil is getting a little long in the tooth and gets excited only when a hurricane approaches. Wayne is just a good old Bellaire boy always in search of publicity [Best of Houston issue, September 20]. But for the real follow-through, Channel 2’s team…
Cross Ways
It’s generally considered a violation of the unwritten code of film criticism to reveal anything that happens more than halfway into a movie, let alone near the end. Entire “flame wars” have been waged on the Internet over the slightest of spoilers, even when they involve something as minor as…
O Tempora! O Mores!
Since the catastrophe in New York, every press release the PR people fax out has an almost apologetic tone. Who can blame them? We live in a different world since September 11, and their previous concerns about getting media attention for a bake sale now seem small and petty by…
The Brave & the Bold
Before he was editor in chief at Marvel Comics–which, by all rights, makes him the man who tells Spider-Man what he can do with himself and the X-Men where to go–Joe Quesada illustrated a comic book titled Ash. The title did not last long; there was, perhaps, little market for…
Down with Motors
Texas is motorboat country. One need only look at the Jet Skis and metal-flecked speedboats swarming over Lake Houston to know that. Still, as the 13th Annual Southwestern Canoe Rendezvous proves, there are some folks who think boating is about finding harmony in nature, not conquering it outright. The most…
Trailer Park Tragedy
The Smiths are a flat-out nasty lot. You can tell just by looking at their shabby, low-rent, trailer-park living room. Gaffer tape holds together the La-Z-Boy, tinfoil makes the TV work, and the refrigerator is a hulking box of rusty beige. Even worse, it’s the middle of the night, and…
Hot Plate
Auguste Escoffier, the French culinary pioneer described by Kaiser Wilhelm II as the “emperor of chefs,” once created a dish dubbed tournedos Rossini, a mixture of Gioacchino Rossini’s favorite foods, which Escoffier ingeniously combined to honor the gifted Italian composer. A round of bread was toasted in clarified butter, then…
Rat in a Cage
In a story by the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, a man who is seeking immortality is directed to a mysterious company that claims to be able to provide such a service. As he waits for someone to attend to him, for what seems an inordinate amount of time,…
Story Teller
It has been less than a week since the terrorist attacks, and Ray Davies just doesn’t have his mind on music. “I…I can’t really see the value in performing or doing interviews now. It just pales in comparison,” the co-founder of the Kinks says from his Konk studio in London…
American Kobe
The baseball-sized filet mignon is so streaked with fat, it looks like it’s been painted with white stripes. It sits in the middle of the platter, surrounded by a New York strip, a rib eye and a couple of nice-looking chops. Lynn’s Steakhouse is so proud of their meat, they…
Movin’ On Up
A large chunk of the male population has done it at one point or another, usually in the teen years. You wait until the folks are gone, and then you break off a few phone calls. Then you run out real quick to grab the necessary supplies. Now you’re ready…
Stirred and Shaken
In all of the restaurants I have ever worked in, the bartender was a creature apart from the kitchen staff. While both chef and barman create comestibles for customers, traditionally they don’t interact with each other. But at Ibiza Food & Wine Bar (2450 Louisiana, 713-524-0004), a Midtown dining concept…
The Rage of Lee
Rajolei Pickens is a man who certainly lives up to his name — the dude is one serious picker. Sitting at a boardroom table inside the KPFT headquarters one Saturday night, Pickens (his friends just call him Raj) constantly, steadily picks away at his bushy Nat Hentoff-esque beard with his…
Racket
The Ensemble Theatre (3535 Main) has opened its 25th anniversary season with a hellhound on its trail, specifically in the form of Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil. The play, by Bill Harris, runs through Sunday, October 7, and stars Cedric Turner as the doom-laden bluesman. Harris hopes to examine not…
Pimp’s Up, Joes Down
Local house DJ/party promoter Kung Fu Pimp has been one of downtown Houston’s most savage critics. It was just about a year ago, in this column (“Maller, Shot Caller,” August 31), when he said that the city center scene was “a meat market” full of people who “don’t appreciate the…
Gilberto Gil and Milton Nascimento
Fans who were hoping Gil & Milton would do for Brazilian music what last year’s Congreso Nacional de la Salsa did for salsa will be disappointed. Very, very disappointed. The Gil and Milton involved here are, of course, Gilberto Gil and Milton Nascimento, two giants on the mosica popular brasileira…
Libbi Bosworth
Galveston-born Libbi Bosworth is hitting her stride after a career filled with stops and starts, brief glimpses of stardom and time spent in dead-end towns — she’s finally putting down her roots after recently moving (permanently this time) from Houston to Austin. Bosworth’s 1997 debut, Outskirts of You, was an…
The Ultimate Makeover
Because this story is something of a fairy tale, and because it involves something of a princess, it would be fair to start off by saying that once upon a time there lived a little girl named Debbie Parkes. She was named after Debbie Reynolds, the famous movie star, and…
Playbill
What can an Indian classical music virtuoso who has been playing concerts since he was seven learn from pop music? “Being precise in my presentation,” says violinist Lakshminarayana, or L., Shankar. In South India, performing a raga can take up to four hours, including 20 minutes just to tune up…
Driving Miss D.A.-isy
Craig Bellamy was a picture of rectitude and professional duty when he took the witness stand in October 2000. A member the Houston Police DWI Task Force, the young officer displayed steely confidence as he described events that happened six months earlier when he arrested a woman for driving drunk…
Playbill
The cover of Bruce Robison’s new Country Sunshine CD resembles nothing so much as that of a Don Williams eight-track. An early-’70s-looking couple (who somewhat resemble Bruce and wife Kelly Willis) are standing in a puke-green meadow, smiling dreamily into the middle distance, looking for all the world like painted…
A High-Priced Chop
Gordon Quan was not at all pleased when he learned recently that a developer had illegally toppled a 60-year-old oak on city property at D’Amico and Waugh Drive. What really angered the councilmember, however, was that the alleged offender got off without so much as a fine. “…I am disappointed…
Minibill
Seldom do band, band name and venue fit together as snugly as San Francisco trashcan roots trio Rube Waddell at No tsu oH. The band’s namesake was one of the greatest pitchers at the turn of the 20th century. He was also nuttier than a tall glass of horchata. Were…