Bill Kills
During a pivotal pregame moment in Oliver Stone’s fumbling football flick Any Given Sunday, Bill Bellamy, as star wide receiver Jimmy Sanderson, hypes himself up by chanting, “I’m the greatest wide receiver that ever lived…I’m the greatest wide receiver that ever lived.” As he repeats the mantra, his face slowly…
Party Train
Oh, Janis. Oh, gorgeous, outrageous, soul-ripping, rockin’ bluesy mama Janis Joplin. She’s a volcano. She’s a tsunami. She’s a fearless, reckless, raging American beauty. Watch her tear open her chest to reveal her hot, pulsing wounds. Watch her rage with burning, glorious light. Watch her smile that sweet Janis smile…
Painting by Numbers
FRI 9/3 In most people’s minds, math and art don’t mix. Creative types diss mathematics as the stuff of accountants — banal, but necessary. But think about it: The Greeks used math to create human likenesses. Poetry is ruled by meter. And all shapes are geometrical. Maybe it’s time to…
Kill Bill
Whatever is worthwhile about The Hunting of the President — a new documentary on the right-wing attack dogs who conspired to bring down Clinton throughout his presidency — the film is plagued by a single, damning problem: It was made by Harry Thomason. Thomason is an über-FOB, a very public…
Just Cruisin’ Along
Last year our commander in chief took one step on a Segway Human Transporter before it toppled over. According to BBC News, he “managed to leap to safety, landing on his feet,” proving once and for all that Dubya is no stranger to danger. You can follow the prez’s lead…
Shake, Shake, Shake
It’s been 20 years since Kevin Bacon got the girls all gaga in Footloose. But the 1984 dance flick did more than turn Bacon into a heartthrob; the free-wheeling film featured multiple platinum tunes and became an ’80s anthem for kids who loved to dance. Good news for anyone with…
Tail Wagon
SAT 9/4 The E! Network is the wagon to which Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole and the Buttafuocos hitched their stars — or maybe it’s the wagon that tethered their legs to the back and dragged them. Either way, E! is about to take the Lone Star for a ride. Houston…
Capsule Reviews
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change! If only love trouble were as simple as Joe DePietro and Jimmy Roberts imagine it to be in their hugely popular musical revue I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change! The amusing bauble of a production now running at Stages Repertory Theatre gives…
Shel Shocked
FRI 9/3 Those who know the late Shel Silverstein only as the author of beloved children’s books (A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends) or offbeat country-tinged songs (“A Boy Named Sue,” “Cover of the Rolling Stone”) might be surprised to know that there’s a darker, much more…
Global Exploring
Two women take turns pouring water over each other’s heads as they sit talking. They’re wrapped in towels, and water drips down their bare shoulders as their voices echo in the room. Behind them is a stone basin with faucets; the setting is a hamam, or Turkish bath. The video…
Classics Rock
Back at Strake Jesuit High School, freshman English was about two things: grammar and Greek mythology. Lorded over by the cranky, cynical, chain-smoking and hard-drinking Father Toye, we diagrammed peculiar sentence after peculiar sentence of Father Toye’s own devising about the adventures of “Lulu, Mimi and Arabella,” who seemed to…
Capsule Reviews
“Darren Waterston: Chimera” Waterston’s show presents an ambitious, site-specific wall work and several of his lush and gorgeously atmospheric paintings. Running over three walls, the mural, also called Chimera, is the artist’s first in a commercial space. Its imagery includes pale blue snaking forms, clusters of black tadpoles/spermatozoa swimming across…
Electra-fied
Every band has a story: drugs, deception, debauchery. The Electras are no different. Formed in 1961 by prep school students Andy Gagarin, Jack Radcliffe, Peter Lang, Jon Prouty, Larry Rand and current presidential hope-hope-hopeful John Kerry, the Electras enjoyed a two-year life span, playing their versions of classic garage and…
The Specialist
It started when Lynda Bushy saw one of the small yellow bandit signs lining the curbs in her northeast Houston neighborhood: Homes available for people with bad credit. Call now. Bushy, a 43-year-old data coordinator for M.D. Anderson, never had owned a home. But she and her husband, a retired…
Horrific Haikus
The naming of rock bands has taken some strange turns of late. You’ve got that whole emo phrase/non sequitur/Mad-lib thing that’s so easy to parody — Autumn of My Radio, Leaves in the Ocean, It’s a Mahogany Future and the like are simple to come up with. Then there’s indie…
Fruits of Franchising
When the heat index goes above 106 in Houston, you can’t eat a cheeseburger for lunch unless you have time for a siesta. That’s why salads and smoothies are such popular fare in the sun-blasted tail end of summer. La Paletera on Fulton is a shiny little store that offers…
Wanted: Moore Rumbles
Alice seems to be in a bit of a prickly mood tonight. After I order another Lone Star I think I even hear a “hrrrmph” as she retrieves a glass from the kitchen fridge. Despite her sour attitude, she manages to force a smile. “That’ll be $1.25.” Five quarters is…
Salad Days
A recent Dallas Morning News article cited fewer oilman fatcats dining at La Colombe d’Or (3410 Montrose, 713-524-7999) as evidence that Houston’s economy hasn’t recovered, despite almost $50-a-barrel oil. And sure enough, on a recent visit, the 1923 restaurant was almost empty, but hey, that just means better service. Owner…
Shooting Star
For a film with a tight schedule and an even tighter budget, Resurrection: the J.R. Richard Story is not off to a great start. Today’s scene, the first to be shot, is supposed to show the former Houston Astro at his rock-bottom worst: strung out and begging his ex-wife, a…
Comets on Fire
Revisionist history has painted the original psychedelic era as something sunny, paisley-printed and oozing with love. But really, a lot of the music of the late ’60s bent minds toward the darker realms of cosmic consciousness: confusion, phobia, neurosis and, fuck, even Satan. The members of Comets on Fire –…
J.R. Richard: The Human Condition
Intimidating, dominant, then brought low, the former Major League All-Star and six-foot-eight strikeout machine believes the Houston Astros would’ve treated him differently if he were Nolan Ryan, and says the only way to understand homelessness is to live hungry under a bridge — like he did. DH: After your first…
Maya Bond
Tired of chirpy kids’ music that sounds like it was composed by Christian youth group leaders on four hits of ecstasy? Here’s the antidote. I first heard Maya Bond on KTRU’s Kids Show while driving around with my eight-year-old son earlier this summer, and they had us running from the…
Not Rocket Science
The August 18 internal memo to all NASA personnel at Johnson Space Center seemed innocuous enough. “With the party political conventions in full swing,” wrote JSC chief counsel Bernard Roan, it was time to restate NASA’s policy on employee campaign activities. Included was a warning against any political activity while…
Martina Topley-Bird
Martina Topley-Bird is the female vocalist who was the focal point of Tricky’s groundbreaking first three albums. Back then, the two switched traditional roles, with Topley-Bird playing the male to Tricky’s female side with sexy naughtiness. Five years after the duo’s split and four years in the making, Topley-Bird released…
Lots of Problems
Doug Wheat has a problem with his next-door neighbor. When he and his wife moved into a subdivision just east of the Galleria 11 years ago, they were seeking peace and quiet. They liked the fact that deed restrictions prohibited commercial use of the vacant lots across the street from…
Guitar Wolf
Fuck the Strokes, fuck the Hives, and fuck every other slicked-out overhyped rock band on the planet. If you want real rock and roll, the kind that makes you wanna get all hopped up on booze and dangerous amounts of adrenaline and run around like a maniac bringing glorious chaos…
Letters
Taking Shots Classic picture: Bravo to photographer Daniel Kramer for the “Cowboy Noir” feature [by Craig Malisow, August 19]! That large first picture was fantastic — composition, lighting, tone, emotion. Beautiful photograph, beautiful cowboy. I’m clipping it and pinning it up, right next to Michael Keaton, Keanu Reeves and Johnny…
Clouseaux
Houston’s very own Tahitian treat continues with, ahem, “Samoa” of its patented “tiki-lounge-exotica” sounds. Clouseaux remains the most cinematic-sounding band in town; the “Rapa noir” mood of Lagoon! can make even Galveston’s familiar brownwater shores seem like something out of The Island of Dr. Moreau, or at least The Island…
First Fertle
Pop quiz: Name the funniest family in Texas. If you said “the Fertles,” go to the head of the class. Hailing from the fictional town of Dumpster, the lovable Fertle family is the creation of Steve Farrell, his wife, Vicki, and Rich Mills. This trio has been the backbone of…
Playbill
Scott Miller For former V-Roys front man Scott Miller, ’04 was a year to “Chill, Relax Now” on the writing/recording front. But instead of getting in scribbling and studio time, the Virginia native and Knoxville, Tennessee, resident ended up whiling away his time playing on some high-profile stages and embarked…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, September 2 The folks at Eastman Gallery don’t screw around with semantics. The title of their latest exhibition just seems to be “Art Show.” Yep, that’s right: “Art Show.” Is it an ironic joke or is it laziness? The world may never know, but we can tell you there’ll…
Reese’s Piece
In Victorian England, 40,000 novels were published every year. Of the few that have endured, perhaps none is more worthy of a film adaptation than Vanity Fair, if for no other reason than this: It’s a chore to read. Clocking in at 850 pages, with frequent excursions into unrelated subjects…