Fish Stories
Most of the bad press surrounding the firing last year of Texas Funeral Service Commission director Eliza May thus far has focused on Governor George W. Bush and his staff. But as May’s wrongful termination suit proceeds through depositions toward an April court date in Austin, expect a strong media…
In the Company of Moles
Meet the Parents has just enough class to make for Prestige Pop Culture: Robert De Niro as star, Randy Newman as composer, Blythe Danner as wallpaper, Ben Stiller as schmuck. It has just enough “comedy” to qualify as crowd-pleaser: sight gags (Stiller chasing a cat across a roof before setting…
Jailhouse Crock
It’s definitely one of the odder causes taken up by the League of United Latin American Citizens. LULAC has led countless civil rights advances, but this time it isn’t fighting for equality for elementary school students, or victims of police abuse, or job applicants shut out because of their race…
Hitting Below the Belt
It takes a special kind of mind-set to celebrate castration, and audiences confusing feminine empowerment with the crude hacking off of seemingly oppressive huevos are certain to get a bang out of Girlfight, the gritty debut feature from writer-director Karyn Kusama. Metaphorical or otherwise, there’s already a movie about deballing…
Letters
Behest of Houston? Poll-ite protest: Each year I eagerly await the annual listing of the Best of Houston [September 21]. Perhaps it will lead me to a new unknown restaurant or introduce me to an obscure place to shop for that perfect gift. Yet I remain perplexed as to why…
Odd Couple
Rosemary, the gun-slinging butch security guard from Pennell Somsen’s one-act script One Tit, A Dyke & Gin doesn’t like being called a lesbian. “Lesbian always sounds like you got to go to college to be one,” she says. The straight-talking Brooklyn native prefers being called a dyke. Louise, on the…
Hi, Bob!
In February 1960, an accountant-turned-comic named Bob Newhart walked into the Tidelands Club in Houston to record his first comedy album for Warner Bros. Records, which had just signed the relative unknown. But there was a slight problem. While Warner Bros. had heard some of Newhart’s taped routines and thought…
Two Steps Back
It’s a noble goal. The Houston Dance Initiative, under the direction of Houston Ballet resident lighting designer Christina Giannelli, wants to “foster a fertile environment for contemporary dance in Houston” by providing choreographers with a professional venue for the production of their works. Perhaps one day the organization will succeed,…
Cartoons with Kick
For quite some time there has been a growing cult of folks thirsting for a breakout film that would do for animation what the Dark Knight series did for comic books. For a brief glimmering moment, they put their hopes in the hands of Don Bluth, who, with The Secret…
Border Crossings
Speaking off the toque: Youssef Nafaa is the chef and owner of two Houston restaurants, the Italian-style Mia Bella [320 Main, (713)237-0505] and the tapas-heavy Mi Luna [2441 University, (713)520-5025]. Nafaa, who arrived in the United States in 1988, was born in Morocco. Q: Many have expressed a belief that…
Texas Sushi? Hai!
Goths and strippers eating sushi in weird little booths — that’s the rumor I received by e-mail about Coco’s Yakitori/Sushi Bar out on the Richmond Strip. So the first time I went there, I showed up at 1:30 a.m. Doesn’t that seem like the right time to mingle with goths…
It’s Alive!
In the 1931 Hollywood version of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff as a monster composed of reanimated bits of various corpses, the film ends with the monster being destroyed by a mob of torch-wielding peasants. As any good neo-Stalinist film critic can tell you, the peasants are, as peasants are wont…
Grecian Formula
The name may be Greek to you, but the taste will be instantly familiar when you bite into the tantalizing tiropitakia at Mykonos Island [2181 Portsmouth, (713)523-4114]. The classic Greek appetizer ($3.95) is packed with four — count ’em, four — kinds of cheeses: feta, Romano, Parmesan and ricotta. They’re…
Booze in a Blender
The salsa rhythms pouring out of the sound system at Bossa, downtown’s trendy new Cuban bar and nuevo Latino restaurant [610 Main Street, (713)223-2622], are punctuated by the charming chirps of crickets. I ask bartender David Anderson if the crickets are part of the tape. He tells me they are…
A Father’s Retribution
Gary Gates, whose retired Air Force pilot of a father was shot to death by a second wife, is an intensely focused man who believes in improvement, a practical man who likes to make bad things better, a studied man not prone to the waverings of doubt. In Oklahoma, where…
Death Rap
Erik Schrody, whom you may know better as Everlast or as his occasional moniker Whitey Ford, has made a record that sounds so, well, black. It’s the kind of record that transcends the usual boundaries hip-hoppers have chalked up to white wanna-bes. Where does he get off? This is, after…
Learning Curve
Kids caught the last of the summer sun while teachers returned to school. The two weeks before students swarm in and school starts is usually a peaceful, pleasant time. The halls are empty and quiet as instructors plan lessons and decorate classrooms. Dr. Kathyrn Montross had even more reason to…
Live Poets Society
Live is a misunderstood band. Smart and strong has always confused folks. The misconceptions began in 1991, when the band made its debut with Mental Jewelry, a vibrant but immature offering layered thick with social commentary yet also packed with personal yearning. The music was good enough to attract listeners,…
NoDo Invades; Rebels Skirmish
Ever since her youth, Dawn Fudge has been dazzled by the legends surrounding a small establishment tucked away in an industrial corner just north of downtown. She knew the rumors about the Last Concert Cafe and the colorful woman who opened it in 1950, Elena “Mama” Lopez. “We always heard…
Rollin’ on the River
Despite the fact that jazz is one of America’s few original art forms, the music and its practitioners are generally neglected. Jazz players are lucky to land regular gigs. Clubs that promote the music rarely draw large crowds, and few of the genre’s musicians are household names. Most years, you…
TAASk-masters
Barbara Canetti could not believe her children’s teachers. Every school year, from day one, it was TAAS this, TAAS that, TAAS the other. “I had to go to my son’s teacher when he was in the fifth grade and tell her that there needs to be a moratorium on the…
Playbill
There was a time, not too long ago, when your average young music fan would have been as hard-pressed to describe ska-punk as he would a didgeridoo. Then along came a song called “The Impression That I Get,” by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and the great ska-punk explosion of the…
Howdy, Neighbor!
Eight a.m. is too early to be anywhere but bed on a Saturday morning, never mind the Astrohall, but civic-minded earnestness knows no clock, so I set mine and arrived on time for the Fourth Annual Neighborhood Connections Conference, sponsored by Houston’s Department of Planning and Development, to see “Neighborhood…
Playbill
Think of this gig as a hip-hop reclamation project, bringing the genre back to its roots. That’s what the Aboriginals are all about. Songs come out in body-moving beats, with tight production and thoughtful lyrics. Substance, real substance, which has been MIA in hip-hop, turns up in abundance in this…
Ant-icipation
A Barbie hung like a loincloth over Curtis Schreier’s genitals, and the rest of his naked, round, middle-aged body was painted, ceremonially, with ants. Atop his head a pair of cardboard antennae rose a couple of feet into the air. Arguably, he was the most sensibly dressed man at the…
Buying Time
While doing his survival gig (waiting tables) one night at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse, singer-songwriter Clay Farmer bumped into a familiar face. Vic Schneider had been showing up at Farmer’s weekly Satellite Lounge shows and bringing along lots of friends. Schneider raved to everyone he knew, including the artist himself, about…
Rock and a Hard Place
John Wesley Hall believes justice is a myth taught in classrooms, a fable found in law books, as imaginary as the unicorn and the mermaid. The Arkansas attorney mentions case after case in which he represented an innocent who wound up imprisoned or, worse, executed; in the course of a…
MVPs
Don’t worry, sports fans. When SRO goes “unplugged,” all the big-screen TVs don’t blank out. Just some pretty cool acoustic music happens. Every Friday, SRO Sports Bar and Grill (2517 South Gessner) hosts “SRO Theatre,” an acoustic open-mike night that features local talent. And every Sunday, SRO/Gessner brings in well-known…