Four Things It Appears the New iPhone 5 Still Doesn’t Have
Schiller: “We designed the iPhone 5 to fit your hand. Exactly where your money used to be.”— Brent Ozar (@BrentO) September 12, 2012 I’ve owned an iPhone for over a few years and upgrades. I’ve thoroughly praised it for being an integral part of my daily life, from apps to…
Another Death in Journalism: Texas Watchdog Finished?
Texas Watchdog, we barely knew you. After four years of some stellar muckraking, but so-so writing, that exposed malfeasance in the HISD, dredged out some waste in stimulus dollars (who-woulda-thunk-it?) and exposed “gaping lapses in Texas ethics law,” Texas Watchdog may disappear into the ether in two months. Its funding…
Know Your Narco Saints: The Religious Iconography of the Drug Trade
Santa Muerte, the newly-popular Grim Reaper-like Mexican folk saint, and subject of this week’s cover story, is not the only object of supernatural devotion in the drug trade. Far from it. In fact, she’s something of a Johnny-come-lately in Mexican folk religion. For as long as there have been smugglers…
6-year-old Safe After He Gets on School Bus & Is Dumped by Driver
Mom Ashley Dorsey was pretty upset when she contacted us earlier today, saying her six-year-old son ended up walking on West Bellfort for an entire hour after school Tuesday after being dumped nowhere near his home before a stranger picked him up and got him to police. This afternoon, Dr…
Ben Affleck in Terrence Malick’s To The Wonder at the Toronto Film Festival
Film critic Karina Longworth is reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival this week. As the summer of self-plagiarism comes to a close, add Terrence Malick to the list of those accused of this debatable crime: The auteur’s quick follow-up to last year’s The Tree of Life, To The Wonder,…
100 Favorite Dishes 2012: No. 12, Venison Carpaccio at Thanh Phuong
This year leading up to our annual Best of Houston® issue, we’re counting down our 100 favorite dishes in Houston. This list comprises our favorite dishes from the last year, dishes that are essential to Houston’s cultural landscape and/or dishes that any visitor (or resident) should try at least once…
Cover Story: The Rise and Rise of Santa Muerte, with VIDEO
It was sometime back in the early 2000s, or maybe even the late 1990s, that I started seeing them at the late beloved Dunlavy Fiesta: in the Hispanic aisle, alongside the colorful votive candles to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Saint Jude, and the Most Powerful Hand of God, there were…
When Directors Love Their Stars: Frances Ha and Yellow at the Toronto Film Festival
Film critic Karina Longworth is reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival this week. For maybe the first hour of Yellow (written and directed by Nick Cassavetes, the man responsible for the national treasure that is The Notebook), I kept thinking about another film premiering here in Toronto, Frances Ha,…
A Great Italian Wine List at Nundini
For an Italian wine lover like me, the wine list at Nundini Chef’s Table Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar, the subject of this week’s cafe review (I filled in for Katharine Shilcutt), is a dream come true. It covers nearly every wine-growing region in Italy, and its prices are not…
Five Ways Facebook Is Altering Our Personal Communications
With the launch of the new iPhone 5 today, everyone is in an Apple-induced euphoria, so I figured this might be a good time to talk about personal communication. The iPhone, and cellular phone technology in general, have shaped how we communicate with our friends and family, from the gradual…
5 Funny Johnny Cash Songs Besides “A Boy Named Sue”
This past week while sifting through Cactus Music’s country 45 crates — BACK OFF — I found a copy of Johnny Cash’s “The Chicken In Black” single, just in time for the ninth anniversary of the Man In Black taking his trip to Heaven and his darling bride June Carter…
Ben Tecumseh DeSoto’s Long, Strange, Beautiful Career
Redbud Gallery is a hopelessly small venue to conduct a retrospective of Ben Tecumseh DeSoto, the longtime Houston photographer whose work has run on the pages of the Houston Chronicle and the walls of the Menil and CAMH. And yet, in its latest show, “ZENtrospective,” the space manages to bring…
Chef Chat, Part 1: David Grossman of Branch Water Tavern on Faking It Till You Make It, His Time at CIA in New York, and an Externship in San Francisco
Branch Water Tavern 510 Shepherd 713-863-7777 www.branchwatertavern.com This is Part 1 of a three-part chef chat series. Parts 2 and 3 will run in this same space on Thursday and Friday. Driving north on Shepherd Drive towards Washington Boulevard, it’s hard to miss the sleek wooden lines of the building…
Which Fake Randy Travis Should You Follow?
The passion of Randy Travis has been one of the saddest and most compelling musical dramas of the past year. One of Nashville’s most beloved and seemingly mild-mannered singers (now a North Texan) has suddenly gone full-on Johnny Paycheck, brawling in church parking lots, popping out to buy smokes while…
UPDATED:Senator Rodney Ellis Joins Chorus Questioning the Statewide Voter Purge
Update:Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan issued a legal memorandum today saying the state’s “purge of allegedly dead voters” was not legal. “The notice from the Secretary of State did not make the required determination that the voters on the list were deceased,” Ryan said. “Many people have come forward astounded…
Things I Can’t Wait to Wear: Fall/Winter 2012 Edition
So, great “cold front,” right? As a transplanted northerner, it amazes me that a meteorologist can say the words “cold front” in regard to temperatures in the 60s and 70s with a completely straight face. COLD? How about a “not deathly hot anymore” front? That’s a lot closer to the…
Behind the Scenes at The Iron Sommelier Competition
“In ten minutes, they’re gonna be in the room,” said sommelier Antonio Gianola with a tone of urgency. To his right, fellow sommelier Jonathan Honefenger encouraged his fellow somms along with cries of: “Hustle! Hustle!” The two men moved swiftly from one seat to the next, pouring a deliberate ounce…
Breaking News: Funnel Cloud Warning for Fort Bend County
Click 2 Houston is passing on a weather report warning of possible funnel clouds this morning in Fort Bend County. The report says that rapidly developing thunderstorms coupled with “a very buoyant atmosphere” will lead to funnel clouds. Their report follows:…
Reality Bites: Collection Intervention
The idea of “collecting” something is a recent one, as most previous human generations were more concerned with fending off enemy tribes or dying of the plague than seeing how many 1st edition copies of Pilgrim’f Progreff they could get their palsied hands on. Certainly there were exceptions: academics, the…
The Clash In Houston, 1979: A Case of Legionaire’s Disease
By the time The Clash hit Houston’s Cullen Theater on October 5, 1979, Lester Bangs had described their tour-de-force as “desperation uncontrived, unstaged, a fury unleashed on the stage … real pain that connects with the nerves of the audience.” Yet Texans had already been enthralled by the Sex Pistols’…
My Trip to Napa Valley: Part I
I’m pretty sure I fell in love with Napa. It’s like an alcoholic’s wine lover’s Disney World; a dream land filled with picturesque landscape, a fantastic crisp breeze and some of the world’s best wine at your fingertips, ripe for the taking. And the food scene; well, it’s TDF. I…
Free Wi-Fi at Houston’s Airports But Grab It Quick, Ends Soon
Both George Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby airports will have free wi-fi thanks to Google Play (yay!), but only through the end of September (boo). As we reported in July, Houston airports don’t have the extended free wi-fi amenities that many others in the country do. As part of…
Steve Martin Revisits His Wild and Crazy Past
“Comedy is the ability to make people laugh without making them puke.” — Steve Martin There is now an entire generation of people for whom Steve Martin is the white-haired guy who plays lovesick middle age architects, befuddled dads and bumbling French detectives in the movies. They have no clue…
Comment of the Day: 9/11 Stupidity
We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it’s time we paid some damn attention to them. So we’ll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning or afternoon from the previous day’s work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous…
My Mom’s Broccoli Salad
Going from enjoying wonderful meals made by my mom all summer to microwaving frozen dinners to fit the hectic schedule of being a college student has been difficult. I miss coming home to a kitchen filled with comforting smells. So, whenever I get homesick, I make something that reminds me…
Curtis Salgado Is the Original Blues Brother
While survivorship is a constant theme of the genre, Curtis Salgado might be pushing it even for a bluesman. The singer/harp player has survived a liver transplant and then two operations to remove cancerous tumors from his lungs — the most recent of which occurred in July. And while he’s…
Is Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason Misunderstood or Just Bad?
Like a lot of people I didn’t really discover Pink Floyd until I was in my late teens. I had heard their songs before on the radio, but had never felt the need to go buy any of their CDs. Then one night in my dorm room I listened to…
Jett Williams Sings “The Hank Williams Blues”
“This is a scary story,” The Last Ride director Harry Thomason tells us. The Last Ride chronicles the last 72 hours of Hank Williams’s life. That’s not an especially happy story, but it’s not exactly scary. No, Thomason is talking about his experiences making the movie. At the beginning of…
Asia Society Texas Center Jade Stone Café Definitely a Gem
As far as food is concerned, things really are looking up in the Museum District. Since I moved here in 2009, we’ve seen the Fine Art + Food Trucks exhibit open at MFAH, giving Museum District workers and employees a daily food truck option; Green Seed Vegan opened its doors…
Houston’s Consolation Prize: Space Shuttle Endeavour Gets A Conjugal Visit
A little bit of Houston died last year when Atlantis returned from its final mission and NASA put the breaks on the space shuttle program. The wound was exacerbated by the announcement a few months prior that Houston would not become home to a retired shuttle, but that New York…
Shriya Patel: Husband She Was Accused of Torching in April Has Died
Bimal Patel, the Austin man whose wife allegedly doused him in gasoline and set him on fire after promising him a romantic massage back in April, has died. Ever since the April 17 incident, Patel, 29, had been in a burns unit at San Antonio Military Medical Center. Doctors there…
5 More Bizarre “Basement Tapes” We’d Like to See
Recently over in England, someone dug up some old tapes of a band called Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, a band who may have gone largely unheard of for the rest of time, were it not for the fact that their drummer was one Ringo Starr. Yes, two years before…
100 Creatives 2012: Jason Nodler, Artistic Director, Playwright, Director
What he does: Jason Nodler had tried a lot of things before ending up as the artistic director of Catastrophic Theatre. He ran a campaign office at one point, worked at a coffee shop, as a booking agent, a computer network administrator and technical writer. A native of Houston, Nodler…
City Hall Farmers Market Starts Its Fall Season Today
After a much-needed break during the hottest part of the year, the City Hall Farmers Market is returning to its regular weekly schedule starting today. The fall season of the City Hall Farmers Market starts today at 11 a.m. and will run every Wednesday throughout the season. The market closes…
Gothic Council Picks Your Halloween Playlist
Believe it or now, some fall air snuck down here and actually managed to weaken Pappy Sun’s murderous death grip on Houston. It was nice to walk the dog without feeling as if I lived in the crotch of a Bulgarian shot putter warming up for the hurl. Plus, in…
This Week In Food Blogs: The End of Cheap Food?
The Village Voice: One of the highlights of my recent trip to D.C. was getting to watch the announcement of the brand-new American Chef Corps live at the State Department. Robert Sietsema at the Village Voice has more on what the so-called Diplomatic Culinary Partnership entails, while Eater has the…
REMÜV: Latest Contender For Houston’s Lamest Graffiti “Artist”
In the fight for lamest graffiti in Houston, this year has seen some serious contenders. Back in June we told you about G.O.A.T., the prolific tagger who was spreading his name all around the Fourth Ward and beyond. Just a few weeks later, alleged vandal Uriel Landeros defaced a Picasso…
We’re Goin’ Streakin’!! High School Football Streaker Narrowly Escapes Castration (w/ VIDEO)
I’ve reached the point with television shows where I rarely watch them in first run anymore. I find it much easier to satiate my TV thirst if I sit down and plow through an entire series on Netflix or DVD over the course of a few weeks. It’s what I…
How Hollywood Movies Led to Genocide: The Act of Killing at the Toronto Film Festival
Film critic Karina Longworth is reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival this week. The best, most daring and form-defying documentaries in the world right now are being funded by the Danish Film Institute, and so it goes that the nonfiction knockout of TIFF thus far is The Act of…
Lluvia Paloma Rodriguez: Sister Sticks Nose Into Her Business, and She Bites It Off, Police Say
After a long night in the clubs back in July, Ivon Rodriguez, her sister Lluvia and Lluvia’s husband returned to a Spring Branch area apartment. There, according to an HPD affidavit, an altercation ensued, with Lluvia and her husband the initial combatants. Ivon attempted to intervene, but Lluvia did not…
Did That Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson Post-9/11 Road Trip Really Happen?
We all remember how chaotic, sad, and disorienting the days after September 11, 2001 were for the United States and the world. Air travel in the United States was shut down for days so we could assess security and how to go forward in our scary new world. Most people…
Brian Culwell, Former Gold and Silver Buyers CEO, Sues Man for Calling Him a Rapist
Brian Edgar Culwell, the subject of a Houston Press expose last year, is back in court. A frequent defendant in criminal cases over the years, Culwell, whose family operates the precious-metal buyers with the ubiquitous “We Love Gold Diggers” billboards, is a plaintiff this time around. In a suit filed…
DVDs & Blu-rays: Snow White and the Huntsman, Elles and Mariachi High
Snow White and the Huntsman stars Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, and Sam Claflin; Rupert Sanders directs. Let’s just get it out of the way: Yes, actress Kristen Stewart and director Rupert Sanders, both already in relationships, had an affair during the filming of Snow White and the Huntsman…
100 Favorite Dishes 2012: No. 13, Ribs at Gatlin’s
This year leading up to our annual Best of Houston® issue, we’re counting down our 100 favorite dishes in Houston. This list comprises our favorite dishes from the last year, dishes that are essential to Houston’s cultural landscape and/or dishes that any visitor (or resident) should try at least once…
Girls Only — the Secret Comedy of Women: Just Like a Very Good Pajama Party
The set-up: Two gifted female improv actors in Denver, Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein, discovered a golden lode of material in their high-school diaries, and mined it into scripted vignettes of what it’s like to be young and female for Girls Only – the Secret Comedy of Women. The result…
Infuriating and Horrifying 9/11 Tweets from American Teens (UPDATED)
(Turns out the above tweeter is not an American. We regret the error.) Everyone in the United States remembers where they were on September 11, 2001. Those of us who were of age to understand the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. sat horrified in front of radios…
Fat: In Any Form, It Just Tastes Good
Fat: That dirty little word that America has spent the last 30 years and millions of dollars trying to avoid. Where did that get us? Even fatter as a nation. Avoiding fat has not significantly impacted our collective weight gain, but it has obliterated our palates. There is no denying…
Upcoming: Dethklok, The Jealous Sound, Of Montreal, R. Kelly, Steve Winwood, Etc.
The 71’s: Sat., Sept. 15, 1 p.m., Free. Cactus Music & Video, 2110 Portsmouth St., Houston. 95.7 Boo Bomb with Karmin, Olly Murs, Sammy Adams, Austin Mahone, Marina & The Diamonds, The Wonder Girls: Tue., Oct. 23, 6 p.m., $25/$30. House of Blues, 1204 Caroline, Houston. Against Me!, Fake Problems,…
Where Are We Drinking?
At this craft beer favorite, you can sample beers of every color and kind (as our photographer here has so ably done). And now that the kitchen has reopened, you can get its famous Rancor burger once again too. Think you know where we’re drinking this week? Leave your best…
Houston Center for Photography Opens In Appropriation and Learning Curve 6
The Houston Center for Photography opened two new exhibitions, In Appropriation and Learning Curve 6, this weekend with a Friday evening reception and a Saturday morning curator walk and talk-through with Aaron Schuman. Separated from the melee of opening night, a quieter Sunday afternoon yielded the floor — gallery, actually…
Top 10 Stolen Vehicles in Houston in August
Ready to buy a new vehicle? Besides checking out insurance prices and Consumer Reports ratings on certain models, you might want to take a look at the accounting Houston cops keep each month of reported thefts. Ford trucks were the fan favorite among Houston’s thieves for the month of August,…
Happy 114th Birthday to Waldo Semon, Father of Vinyl
Yesterday, September 10, marked the 114th birthday of a man who helped introduce more people to music in the 20th Century than perhaps any other person despite never picking up an instrument or plugging in a microphone. Unless you’re a serious chemistry geek, you’ve probably never heard of Waldo Lonsbury…
Fire at The Broken Spoke Cafe: Photos of the Aftermath
Read about yesterday’s fire at The Broken Spoke Cafe and see pictures/video from the scene. Until yesterday afternoon, The Broken Spoke Cafe was the tidy little bistro seen above. This morning, the restaurant sits shuttered after sustaining heavy fire and smoke damage when the abandoned duplex next door caught fire…
Unidentified Male Fished Out of Bayou, Bayou Body Count No. 157
Homicide investigators are looking into the death of a man whose body was fished out of a northwest side bayou Sunday afternoon. An autopsy will be performed to determine both the cause of death and the identity of the victim, police say. The body was discovered near the 7000 block…
Top 5 Food Products Whose Containers Are Better Than Their Contents
When I was a tween, I had a weird fixation with Snapple bottles. I thought the label design was cool, and I liked the way a whole row of empty bottles of different varieties (including the abandoned line of sodas) looked lined up on my bedroom window pane. Exciting times,…
Lewis Black Seethes Anew in a Performance Later This Month at the Hobby Center
One thing comedian Lewis Black knows is that this country needs more focus if it is to solve its problems. Therefore, he told Art Attack, doctors should stop give Attention Deficit Disorder drugs to teenagers. “I know everybody in the country has ADD because the FDA has announced we’re running…
5 More Great 9/11 Songs
Rewind: The Top 5 Best & Worst Songs About 9/11 Looking at it now, 11 years to the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the al-Qaeda-led terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, it’s still difficult to underestimate how much the world changed that…
How To: Homemade Bread and Butter Pickles
In my opinion, if you’re not a pickle lover, you’re absolutely nuts. On a sandwich for an added bite, alongside homemade barbecue, as a savory snack with afternoon cocktails, or just straight from the jar, pickles are good on any occasion. And while I’ll never discriminate against any pickle, my…
See Why Aaron Parazette is Art League’s Texas Artist of the Year
Since moving to Houston in 1990 to be a part of the Core Residency Program at the Glassell School of Art, Aaron Parazette has become one of the city’s premier artists. He’s taught at The School of Art at The University of Houston for more than a decade, had several…
A Few Things You Didn’t Know About “Oh! Susanna”
On this day in 1847, legendary American songwriter Stephen Foster debuted the song “Oh! Susanna” to a crowd at the Andrews’ Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “Who gives a tin Enchirito about something we sang in grade school?” you’re shouting because you’re a weird shouty person with a…
Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia Intensifies The SOBER Program
There’s a better chance these days a deputy of Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia will come knocking on the front door of your home demanding proof that your once-drunk self is remaining clean and sober. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office is in the middle of an increased push in its…
Pop Rocks: A Pop Culture Nerd’s Guide To The NFL — The NFC
The first week of the 2012 NFL season is now under our ever expanding belts, capping off what has been a very interesting offseason: longtime Colts QB Peyton Manning went to Denver, while two rookie QBs (Baylor’s Robert Griffin III and Stanford’s Andrew Luck) were prepared to make their presences…
Security Guards in the Champagne Room: Judge Puts the (Temporary) Squeeze on Treasures
Classy “gentlemen’s club” Treasures must install additional security cameras, hire extra security guards, and run state and federal background checks on all staff and contract workers (i.e., boob-jigglers), per a temporary injunction issued Monday. The injunction is a victory for the Harris County Attorney’s Office, which sued the Westheimer titty…
Edible War Games and Live Fire: DEFCON Dining at Foreign & Domestic
Dining out with children is an exercise in situational awareness. Each experience is unique, with different variables leading to different possible outcomes, DEFCON-like in their escalating threat levels. Keen observation, forward planning and prior experience are critical in determining the proper strategy. Here at DEFCON Dining, we do the grunt…
John Prine, Steve Earle Help Chris Knight Score a Few Little Victories
While growing up in Slaughters, Ky., country rocker Chris Knight got the opportunity to take a few guitar lessons from John Prine. He didn’t get any face time with the singer until years later, so the way he got those lessons was by sitting next to the record player all…
Amy Dawn Cooney: Cops Say She Left Three-Month-Old Son in Car So She Could Get Her Drink On
A Houston woman faces a charge of child endangerment after she allegedly left her infant son in the car this weekend while she drank at a bar. Court documents show that Amy Dawn Cooney, 31, went into a bar on September 9 to get a drink and left the boy…
What’s Cooking on Pinterest? Pumpkin Granola Bars
Because we can now purchase Pumpkin Spice Lattes at Starbucks, it is now fall. Yes, I let Starbucks determine what season it is. No judging. In honor of the start of fall, this week, I looked for a pumpkin recipe on Pinterest. With options ranging from pumpkin fudge to pumpkin…
ZZ Top Sucks. There, I Said It.
Today ZZ Top is releasing their 15th studio album and first in nine years, LA FUTURA. By all accounts is it much-anticipated. But I’m going to out myself here and now: I do not get why people love ZZ Top. If you are one of those people, can you explain…
Ten Views of the World Trade Center As Remembered in Film
Eleven years ago today, both the world and the Manhattan skyline forever changed when the World Trade Center came crashing down. Shots of the Twin Towers were often used to establish the movie’s location. Nowadays, using the towers as an establishing shot often means the film is taking place in…
Today Is the Last Day to Vote in the 2012 Best of Houston® Awards
The annual Best of Houston® awards are almost here, but one major housekeeping item needs to be addressed before the issue can hit the streets: your votes. Namely, we need to get them. As you may know, the Best of Houston® award winners are split into two categories: our picks…
Week 1 Highlights of FFL (Fan Fighting League): Jets-Bills Fan Brawl Zapruder Analysis
Between falling debris, falling people and the chance of catching a stray fist in your ear, the live attendance experience at professional sporting events has never been more fraught with potential injury and terror. When you consider the cost of tickets and the tasty advancements in high-definition television technology, it’s…
Watch This: The Hollywood Reporter’s Emmy Campaign Is Really Funny
The 64th Primetime Emmy Awards are just around the corner. If you are a highfalutin TV junkie, than Emmy night is your night! Emmy snobs have a certain air of pompous victory when their favorite shows take home big awards, especially cult favorites with poor ratings. It’s a “see, I…
First Look at Cuchara
There are no chips and salsa delivered to your table at Cuchara. There are no enchiladas or quesadillas on the menu, although there are margaritas and mole. That’s because Cuchara isn’t your run-of-the-mill Tex-Mex restaurant. Like fellow new kid La Fisheria and warhorse Hugo’s, this is Mexican food of the…
The 10 Best Houston Concerts of the Summer
How awesome was that cool front that blew through this past Saturday? Finally, your average Houston afternoon has gone from being a blast furnace to mildly toasty, while the mornings and evenings have become sublime. Hey, we’ll take it. This must be what they call “fall,” so it seemed like…
The Broken Spoke Goes Up in Smoke: Pictures and Video
UPDATE: A press release from the Houston Fire Department appears below. The Broken Spoke Cafe caught fire this afternoon around 3 p.m. and was still blazing around 3:45 p.m., when at least eight Houston Fire Department ladder trucks were hard at work putting the flames out. It is not known…
Unidentified Victim of DWI Manslaughter, Bayou Body Count No. 156
Police have charged a man with intoxication manslaughter in connection with a traffic accident on the south side early this morning. Timothy Norman Perry-Price Sr., 29, was arrested after the death of a 51-year-old woman whose identity has not been released pending verification by the Harris County Institute of Forensic…
Threesomes at the Toronto Film Festival: James Franco + Vanessa Hudgens + Ashley Benson vs. Asia Argento + Charlotte Gainsbourg + François Cluzet
This is a blog post about two movies that were screened for the press within the first 24 hours of the Toronto Film Festival, both of which feature three-way sex scenes. In Spring Breakers, characters played by James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson “do it” in a swimming pool;…
Rusko Coming Back to Houston November 16
Dubstep hero Rusko is coming back to Houston and Warehouse Live on November 16, just months after his last Houston stop, back in late May. You may remember that he threw a positively catty tantrum on Twitter and backstage over sound quality at Stereo Live. The review by Rocks Off’s…
Unidentified Stabbing Victim, Bayou Body Count No. 155
A man was stabbed to death in an apparent robbery attempt on the west side shortly after midnight Sunday, Houston police say. HPD responded Sunday to a “man down” call about 12:10 a.m. at the 8600 block of Beechnut near South Gessner. The victim was found suffering from several stab…
Like To Cry? Watch This New Glen Campbell Video
Glen Campbell’s long slow goodbye has been going on now for a little more than a year, since he announced he was suffering from Alzheimer’s. “A Better Place” is the second video from Glen Campbell’s 2011 album Ghost On The Canvas, and it’s a tearjerker. It’s the goodbye. Featuring Queens…
Monica de Guzman: Three Kilos of Heroin in Nine Packages of Powdered Drink Mix
Let’s see, the three steps of Gatorade greatness in the G Series are 10 Prime, 2) Perform and 3) Recover. In the heretofore unknown H Series, the process also includes 4) Blissfully nodding out to Lou Reed. That’s the takeaway we get, anyway, from the arrest and charges filed today…
100 Favorite Dishes 2012: No. 14, Bialy and Lox from The Hot Bagel Shop
This year leading up to our annual Best of Houston® issue, we’re counting down our 100 favorite dishes in Houston. This list comprises our favorite dishes from the last year, dishes that are essential to Houston’s cultural landscape and/or dishes that any visitor (or resident) should try at least once…
Last Night: Slash at House of Blues
Slash feat. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, Foxy Shazam House of Blues September 9, 2012 See more with Slash, Myles Kennedy and various other conspirators in our slideshow. Seeing Slash is actually a more value-packed way to get the Guns N’ Roses experience here in 2012, a year that saw…
Comment of the Day: Democrats React to Cursin’ Jim Sharp
We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it’s time we paid some damn attention to them. So we’ll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning or afternoon from the previous day’s work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous…
Copper Opens Up “The Empty Locket”
Episode four of BBC America’s Copper sees our heroic antihero Corcoran continuing to turn into the vigilante cop that will make this series crackle. He’s now using his walking cane — his broken leg is still mending — as a weapon to beat information out of criminals, and honesty into…
Eating D.C.: Dining Dispatches from the Capital
As of this writing, I am still comfortably ensconced in the Hotel Palomar in our nation’s capital. There is a Negroni at my side, compliments of the hotel, which was waiting for me in the room after I returned from walking off a Shake Shack burger at lunch. That’s service…
Unidentified Westside Shooting Victim, Bayou Body Count No.154
Little is known about a fatal westside shooting early Sunday morning, Houston police say. Tenants at an apartment complex in the 4700 block of South Kirkwood reported hearing a gunshot about 2:50 a.m. Sunday, police say; when they went outside to investigate, they discovered the body of a man who…
Where Are We Eating?
At this newly opened Upper Kirby spot, a traditionally Italian family is trying their luck with burgers and ribs. If you go try it for yourself, be sure to grab yourself a free soft serve cone on the way out. Think you know where we’re eating this week? Leave your…
Theatre Southwest’s Superior Donuts: A Mixed Success, with Some Tasty One-Liners
The set-up: In Superior Donuts, the taciturn owner of a donut shop in Chicago with few customers hires an African-American male to assist him, and they develop a prickly relationship, while assorted characters enter to complicate their lives. Playwright Tracy Letts, Pulitzer Prize and Tony winner for August: Osage County,…
10 More Black Stars Who Should Try Country
Country Time is a new biweekly column for our sister music blog in Seattle, celebrating that city’s favorite musical genre: Mainstream country. BY MIKE SEELY With the nation’s major-party political conventions drawing to a close last week with a rousing reelection appeal from the nation’s first black president, it seems…
Cougars Looking for Clues But Finding None
University of Houston offensive coordinator Mike Nesbitt “resigned” last Monday morning, just a little more than a day after the Cougars’ embarrassing 30-13 opening game defeat to Texas State. Thus it stands to reason that, sometime this morning, the Houston Cougars will be holding a press conference to announce the…
Career Editing: 6 Songwriters Turned Screenwriters
Last week singer-songwriter and dubious indie sensation Lana Del Rey told Australian Vogue that film work is her “happy place” and that she plans to make the transition into writing for film and “stay there.” Whether this means she will stop making music or not is anyone’s guess and whether…
Doctor Who: It’s Time to Play the Pop Culture Reference Drinking Game
The great thing about the reboot of Doctor Who is how sometimes the show just throws up its hands and decides to see just how many fun little pop culture references it can cram into an episode. Remember when the newly-regenerated Tenth Doctor lost his hand in a swordfight to…
Eat All Your Veggies: There’s Plenty of Reasons Why
I can count on half of one hand the number of cookbooks that have made me want to prepare each and every dish. And make no mistake; I have a cookbook collection that would rival any library or bookstore. Famous chefs, non-famous chefs, home cooks, every coast, every country, nearly…
Houston Ballet Awes with Madame Butterfly/Clear Double Bill
The setup: Houston Ballet presents Artistic Director Stanton Welch’s dance interpretation of the iconic Puccini opera, Madame Butterfly, a tragic tale of betrayal set in nineteenth century Japan. The program also includes Clear, a one-act ballet that showcases the company’s deep field of talented danseurs. The Execution: As his first…
What’s Cooking This Week? Honey BBQ Chicken & More
I love cooking for my fiancé and me, but most of the time, cooking for two proves to be difficult. If I don’t make a plan, I end up running around in circles at the grocery store and wasting half the ingredients I’ve bought (and I hate wasting food). Enter…
2 Pianos, 4 Hands at Stages Repertory Theatre: A Rich Comedic and Emotional Experience
See our interview with the play’s Tom Frey and Jeffrey Rockwell. The set-up: Two talented Canadian pianists and actors (Richard Greenblatt and Ted Dykstra) who had trained for careers as classical musicians have created a play with music that defies description. It uses humor, musical ability and insightful memories of…
Saturday Night: George Jones at Arena Theatre
George Jones Arena Theatre September 8, 2012 I never wondered what it’s like to be almost 81 until Saturday. I never expected to live that long, and still don’t. But while watching George Jones onstage at the Arena Theatre, it was difficult to not at least wonder. But hell, I’m…
More Delays for the T.C. Jester/White Oak Bayou Bike Trail
Bicyclists looking forward to tooling from Oak Forest towards downtown will have to deal with another setback: The seemingly simple project is going to take even longer than thought. The Texas Department of Transportation announced on the Houston Bikeway Program’s Facebook page: It is with regret that we inform you…
Texans 30, Dolphins 10: Finesse Tops Power As Texans Pass First Test
Check out our slideshow of the Houston Texans’ season opener against the Dolphins. It ended with the exact lopsided score we predicted Friday, but at the same time, the 2012 season opener was quite different from the anticipated Texans blowout. The oldest NFL cliché is that winning depends on running…
Uncanny Beauty: Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist
A dozen films by famed Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci will be screened during a month long retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The line-up includes Last Tango in Paris, The Little Buddha, The Last Emperor, and The Conformist, which Alessandro Carrera, director of Italian Studies at the University…
Brio Brings Tuscany Inside the Loop
When Pesce suddenly closed, news that Brio Tuscan Grille would take its place quickly followed. Brio is a national chain restaurant, this being the third location in Houston, with the others in The Woodlands and City Centre. The former Pesce space has been transformed to fit Brio’s casual but chic…
Saturday Night: Toby Keith at The Woodlands
Toby Keith Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion September 8, 2012 Toby Keith is America writ small: beholden to corporate interests, often hypocritical, prone to pursuing his baser urges while exhorting others to hold themselves to a higher standard. He is, in many ways, our exemplary artist for these modern times. Keith’s…
Hoarding & Clutter in the Burbs: Viruses, Fires…When Will It End?
The hot new syndrome these days is hoarding — people can’t get enough reality TV shows about poor idiots who can’t throw anything away, even if those people watching have to shove aside three boxes of 11-year-old Fuddruckers receipts just to see the screen. But things have gotten real, hoarding-wise,…
Substitute Avocado for Butter: Chocolate Chip Cookies
People have tried to re-create sweets with a multitude of ingredients to make them healthier. Prunes, applesauce, egg beaters, whole-wheat flour, oatmeal, etc., have all been used in baked items to replace the ingredients high in sugar and fat. But would it have ever crossed your mind that an avocado…
8 Rousing Speeches Politicians Can Learn From
There have been some pretty serious “we can do it” type of sermons going on over the past two weeks. Starting with the Republican’s “We Built It” (not this city on rock and roll, mind you) to the DNC’s driving directions slogan, both parties are doing their darndest to get…
Friday Night: Kelly Clarkson & The Fray at The Woodlands
Kelly Clarkson, The Fray Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion September 7, 2012 Check out more pics of Kelly Clarkson and The Fray in our slideshow. Friday was a night of literally hot fun at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion. The heat didn’t stop anyone, least of all the artists, from having…
NFL Week 1: Schaub Gets Rich(er), Buffalo Gets Poor(er) — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
Check out our slideshow of the Houston Texans’ season opener against the Dolphins. Could Sunday have been any better? 80-degree day. Sun shining. Birds singing. NFL football back in our lives. Oh, and someone left a whole book of Burger King coupons in the lobby of my building. SCORE! So…
5 Reasons to Watch The Ellen DeGeneres Show
True story: Since my college days, I’ve been DVR’ing “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and inhaling it every morning like clockwork between my shower and cup of coffee. Somewhere along the way, it became a prerequisite for my daily sanity. Let’s be thankful, then, that after a three-month summer hiatus, the…
Paula or Pepin? Separate Savannah from Southern France, and Win Tickets to the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show
Update: Thanks to all who participated. Our three winners were chosen at random out of those who got it right — congratulations big.aitch, tupton and Elizabeth389! -Ed. The Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show is coming to Houston this weekend, and Eating…Our Words has three pairs of tickets to see two…
The 5 Best Shows In Houston This Week: Rosie Flores, Otep, Mission of Burma, Etc.
Rosie Flores, the Austin-based “Rockabilly Filly” and onetime L.A. cowpunk scenester who played the Continental Club with Mike Stinson in late July, circles back around to celebrate her birthday Tuesday at KPFT’s monthy free-show series “Troubador Tuesdays” at Natachee’s Supper & Punch. Back then, Flores told Rocks Off’s own William…
J.J. Watt: Five Obstacles That Are As Difficult to Get Around As His Pass-Blocking Paw
Check out our slideshow of the Houston Texans’ season opener against the Dolphins. The Texans got a season-opening win, thanks largely to defensive lineman J.J. Watt’s continuing proclivity to blocking passes and turning them into points. Maybe someday the NFL will learn not to throw the ball in Watt’s direction,…
J.J. Watt, The Texans’ Pass-Smothering Monster
Check out our slideshow of the Houston Texans’ season opener against the Dolphins. The Texans finally opened the 2012 season, after what has seemed like months of speculation about relatively minor roster spots. They won, easily enough, but some things to keep in mind: — They were playing Miami. –…
Roger Clemens: Fastball’s Gone, But Rumors of Comeback Aren’t
If Roger Clemens had wanted to quell rumors that he wasn’t launching a comeback into Major League Baseball, then he really should start pitching a lot worse. Last night, before a sellout crowd in Sugar Land, Clemens and the Sugar Land Skeeters strangled the Long Island Ducks for four scoreless…
Flu-bitten Dynamo Get Last-Minute Win Over Real Salt Lake
The Houston Dynamo seemed a bit unconditioned to the heat at Thursday’s match against Real Salt Lake at BBVA Compass Stadium. Perhaps it was fatigue, as the Dynamo were playing their sixth match in 20 days. Another dynamic could have been the flu that was going around the Dynamo locker…
Wouldn’t It Be Cool If the Houston Texans Only Played Texas Music at Games?
Much like most Houstonians, I will be in front of a television on Sunday watching our Houston Texans play the Miami Dolphins at Reliant Stadium. It’s a big and promising year for our team, one of only professional sports franchises in town that are successful. Did you know that Billy…
Did Elrod Rodriguez Trade Sex for Facebook Votes to get in Neopopstreetfunk? One Outraged Local Thinks So.
The victory of Leanne “Elrod” Rodriguez in last month’s Neopopstreetfunk Viewer’s Choice competition at M Squared Gallery was not universally applauded. (Her win means her work will be included in the show, which begins November 16.) In fact, one anonymous soul was outraged enough to write Art Attack a letter…
Cy-Fair Youth Baseball Hit with $25,000 Arson
Just a week before the fall season was set to begin, the Cy-Fair Sports Association has been hit with a nasty surprise: an arson that has caused about $25,000 in damage and decimated the league’s equipment and facilities. A suspect has been arrested in connection with this morning’s fire to…
Football! This Weekend’s Best Bets, Preying on UH’s Misery
I was asked on a Miami radio station on Thursday if I thought that the Dolphins had any chance of beating the Texans on Sunday. While firmly of the belief that the Texans will throttle the Dolphins by more than two touchdowns, I had to leave the door slightly ajar…
School of Rock Franchise Opens Katy Outpost
It was hard not to use a famous Who song as our headline here. But Katy, the Houston exurb known for Katy High’s football dominance, now has a different kind of after-school practice for its youth. For the past few weeks, about 20 area Katy-area kids between ages seven and…
This Week in Deliciousness: The Grease Monster of Yucca Flats
Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating…Our Words, where this time of year ten years ago, we’d be nearly halfway through our allotted money on our university meal card already. It’s hard living above a convenience store that’s open late at night, particularly if you have a weakness…
Christopher Clark Pollett: Former Kid’s Charity Exec Gets Six Years for Huge Child-Porn Stash
Christopher Clark Pollett, a former executive with the respected nonprofit Neighborhood Centers Inc., has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for possession of child pornography. The 64-year-old will also be fined $7,800, pay $21,000 in restitution to three victims, and “serve the rest of his life…
100 Favorite Dishes 2012: No. 15, Yogi Thali at Pondicheri
This year leading up to our annual Best of Houston® issue, we’re counting down our 100 favorite dishes in Houston. This list comprises our favorite dishes from the last year, dishes that are essential to Houston’s cultural landscape and/or dishes that any visitor (or resident) should try at least once…
Bayou City Concert Musicals Hits a Home Run with One Touch of Venus
The setup: I realize it’s rather late in the season to offer our hapless Astros any advice that would get them out of the basement, but here goes — replace those losers with Bayou City Concert Musicals. If there’s any team in Houston that consistently hits for the fences, it’s…
Reviews For The Easily Distracted: The Words
Title: The Words Don’t You Know About The Word? Everybody knows that the bird is the word. Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: One copy of A Million Little Pieces out of five. Brief Plot Synopsis: Struggling writer copies old manuscript and passes it off as his own,…
DNC 2012: Who Had the Best Speech? Hint: Not the One Last Night
csmonitor.comWho loves Bill Clinton? Bill Clinton loves Bill Clinton. Three completely different emotions and narratives of the United States unfolded in each of the keynote addresses this week at the Democratic National Convention by two presidents and one first lady. In a way, all the speeches were spectacular displays of…
Sam Houston: The Week in Art Photos
It’s time again to check out the Houston Press Flickr Pool and see what kinds of art shots our talented photographers have added. We love street art, unique perspectives and beautiful photos of Houston’s creative community. If you think you’ve got a good eye, drop your pictures in the pool…
“Miss Sassy Jazz,” Other Locals Lend Library Tunes at Noon
The Houston Public Library would like to give you a little music while you read this month. Friday morning the library announced Tunes at Noon, a new free concert series starting the Tuesday at the main library’s Julia Ideson Building (550 McKinney). The first performer, Cassandra Tyson, is an alumna…
The Trouble with Truffle Oil (Farts and Formaldehyde)
People, I’m sorry to break it to you, but there are just no two ways about it: Truffle oil (or truffled oil) is a sham, it’s bad for you and it’s just downright evil. I’m currently traveling in Italy, where the world’s most famous truffles are foraged. When I received…
A Casual Window Smash, an Extensive Search for Cash: Video of One Burglar’s Night Out
We like how the latest surveillance video released by Crime Stoppers begins: A dude standing outside a business, trying as hard as is humanly possible to look casual. You can almost hear him whistling, saying just loud enough for others to hear, “Nothin’ to see here, folks, move along…” and…
Sorry, Houston, No Farm-Fresh Milk for You
Here’s a riddle: Why would a dairy choose to stop selling milk to Houston resellers for $5 a gallon and instead sell it all to a giant co-op for a mere $1.62 a gallon? The answer? Unbearable pressure. Local milk producer Way Back When Dairy, run by the Ganskey family,…
Rush Wrote a Novel, and It’s Not Embarassingly Awful
At a time when nearly all of its early-’70s hard-rock contemporaries are comfortably coasting on past glories, Rush continues to be propelled by a restless creativity. More than 40 years into the band’s career, it seems that Canada’s ultimate power trio still can’t stop thinking big. This summer, the band…
The Roger Clemens Comeback Tour Continues
Roger Clemens claims he’s not coming back to major league baseball this season. I don’t think anybody really believes Clemens when he says he’s not coming back to the majors, otherwise this whole thing doesn’t make sense. If he’s not coming back, then why else go through the motions of…
Upcoming Events: Big Bites and Triniti Meets Treble Clef
If you went to the recent LaB 5555 event at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (which featured our own mixology competition), you know how awesome the new paleontology hall is. What does that have to do with food? Big Bite Night is just around the corner, that’s what. And…
Five Eyeliners I Like Better Than Jemma Kidd I-Conic
It’s not that I’m trying to be mean about Jemma Kidd’s eyeliners — you’ll recall I wasn’t overly impressed with her recent releases for fall/winter 2012 — but they just don’t measure up to the $14 price tag. I am interested in trying a few more of her products, based…
Sir Paul McCartney, Rihanna Houston Bound
Rewind: Dear Paul McCartney: Please Come Play Houston Two pretty big concert announcements this Friday morning. First, Rihanna, last seen missing most of her hair at Thursday night’s VMAs, is bringing her just-announced Rihanna Diamonds World Tour to Toyota Center April 15, according to Live Nation. Tickets go on sale…
Reviews For The Easily Distracted: Cosmopolis
Title: Cosmopolis How “Cronenberg-y” Is This Movie, Really? Well, Cronenberg didn’t write it (it’s based on the Don DeLillo novel), so the body horror stuff is limited to a protracted rectal exam and a close up gunshot. Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: Three asymmetric prostates out of…
Trailer Park: A Christmas Story 2: Electric Boogaloo
No one asked for it. There was NO Internet or Facebook campaign. Not even a gauche Kickstarter account to make it happen. But here we are, looking at the trailer for A Christmas Story 2 in all its anger-inducing, fever-dream glory. We all love the original film, full of veiled…
Summing Up the 2012 VMAs In One Awkward Photo
By the time you finish this sentence, the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards will have been over for more than 12 hours (unless they’re still killing you with that damn endless loop). Your brain will have turned to mush, your Twitter and dFacebook timelines slowly rebuilding themselves from ash and…
Health Department Roundup: Pass and Provisions, Warren’s, Ruchi’s and more
Sometimes the city’s inspection reports can bring news. And sometimes the online reports can be confusing. The Pass and Provisions (807 Taft) — a fine-dining venture Shilcutt previewed here — is apparently close enough to opening to warrant a pre-opening inspection. Good news for whatever the people formerly known as…
The 2012 Season Preview: The Texans Will Be Super If…
Two days are left. After eight long months away, that’s all that remains before the most anticipated season in Houston football history finally kicks off. Even the 1993 Oilers, whose brilliant 11-game win streak ended with a home loss to Joe Montana’s Chiefs in the divisional round of the playoffs,…
Top Five Hot Shoe Trends for Fall/Winter 2012
If you flipped through even one of the September Issues that came out this month, the focus on shoes was hard to miss. In addition to articles telling us what’s hot for our hoofs this season, advertising also focused heavily on shoes. Harper’s Bazaar ran a gorgeous, black-and-white pictorial (shot…
5 Cool & Cheap Weekenders: Street Dogs, The O’s, Kat Edmonson, Two Gallants, Etc.
Irish-tinged Bah-sten punks Street Dogs, who are tight with Scottish-tinged Ew-sten punks, mosh down to Walters Friday night with Detroit psychobilly freakouts the Koffin Kats. Street Dogs’ fellow New Englanders Roll the Tanks, whose song “Toeing the Line” was recently featured on Alternative Press’ Web site (just like Houston’s Something…
Week in Photos: Chirashizushi
Each week, we take a dip into the Houston Press Flickr pool and see what our talented photographers have been up to. We’re looking for pictures that represent the best of Houston, from food to art to events, to secret hidden spots of beauty. Just drop them in our Flickr…
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sorghum
I haven’t had the best of luck with gluten-free beer. In my experience, gluten-free beer is a lot like most “meat substitute” type products; the more they try to be the real thing, the more they fall short. Beer and burgers, for example, have a lot in common. Though there…
Judge Jim #@&*@ Sharp: Rate His Cursing As He Tries to Spring Friend’s Daughter from Jail
Justice Jim Sharp of the 1st Court of Appeals is a guy who doesn’t mince words, it’s safe to say. He’s dealing with the fallout of all that, as the State Commission on Judicial Conduct has hit him with a public reprimand for his actions in connection with a January…
Wayne the Train: “I Just Don’t See a Tour Bus In My Future”
One goes into an interview with Wayne “The Train” Hancock expecting to confront the ghost of Hank Williams, because the singer has made a good living the past 17 years channeling Hank and other classic country acts. And, as expected, Hancock, who broke onto the roots music scene in 1995…
100 Creatives 2012: Ana Treviño-Godfrey, Musician and Mom
Soprano Ana Treviño-Godfrey has seen lots of changes over the last ten years. She completed her doctorate in music at Rice University. Mercury Baroque, the orchestra she founded with her husband, Jonathan Godfrey, the group’s concertmaster and violin soloist, and Antoine Plante, the group’s artistic director and conductor, expanded its…
Where the Chefs Eat: Seth Siegel-Gardner, Terrence Gallivan, Justin Yu
First there was Just August Project. And then came Pilot Light Group. And then came Oxheart Restaurant. And soon we will have The Pass and Provisions. For this week’s Where the Chefs Eat installment, we found out where Seth Siegel-Gardner, Terrence Gallivan and Justin Yu like to eat around Houston…
66-Year-Old Woman Sues Bo Pelini Foundation for Football-Related Injuries
“We will aggressively protect the health, safety and long-term livelihood of our players, both on the field and off. We can preserve the fierce competition that makes football great, while simultaneously committing to the relentless pursuit of safer play. Our players do not make excuses on the field; we will…
Openings & Closings: Adios Concepcion y Bienvenidos Alma
Although there are only four items in this week’s roundup of openings and closings, all of them are rather big deals (arbitrarily speaking, of course — there’s still a presidential election going on and all that). Starting with the news that chef Jonathan Jones is out at Concepcion. I made…
Top Five: Even More Porn Stars to Follow On Twitter (sNSFW)
In late 2010, I wrote about five porn stars that you should follow on Twitter. It was no easy task. A lot of the bigger actresses aren’t much fun to follow (boring valley-girl pap), or worse, they pump followers to buy them stuff on Amazon by tweeting links to their…
5 Badass Custom Guitars (That Can Be Used For Murder)
You would think that guitar players could be content shredding awesome solos while holding one of the most worshipped musical instruments on the planet. Jim Morrison certainly didn’t give head to Ray Manzarek’s organ on stage. No sir, he went down on the all time greatest phallic symbol this side…
Are You Ready? 85 MPH & No Ticket Between Austin and San Antonio
Sammy Hagar, get outta here with that weak-ass “I can’t drive 55” crap. You’ve still got 30 mph to go before the cops will lift that radar gun to track you on one specific stretch of Texas highway. The Texas Transportation Commission, feeling the need for speed (to continue along…
Man Walks Off with $15K Worth of Golf Clubs, Bike from Bush Baggage Carousel
Someone scored a major haul by hitting Bush Intercontinental’s baggage-claim carousel, and cops are hoping security-cam photos will lead to his arrest. The casually dressed dude got away with $15,000 worth of merchandise, in the form of “five sets of designer golf clubs, and a one of a kind ‘Moots’…
Unidentified Male Shot & Tossed from Car, Bayou Body Count No. 153
Here’s something you generally don’t see at 6 a.m. of a typical weekday: A Chrysler slowing down on a highway so people inside can throw out the bullet-ridden body of a passenger, a victim who then walks to a gas station as he’s slowly dying. That’s what happened this morning…
100 Favorite Dishes 2012: No. 16, Beet Salad at Triniti
This year leading up to our annual Best of Houston® issue, we’re counting down our 100 favorite dishes in Houston. This list comprises our favorite dishes from the last year, dishes that are essential to Houston’s cultural landscape and/or dishes that any visitor (or resident) should try at least once…
Nutritional Value of Organic Food Challenged by Stanford University Study
A recently released Stanford University study, which reviewed and analyzed more than 200 previously conducted studies comparing the health effects of organic and conventional foods, suggests that organic food may not be a shining star in the department of nutritional value. The study’s findings, in a nutshell: There is little…
Judge William Adams, Who Whipped Daughter with Belt: Stays on Bench, Gets Public Warning from Conduct Commission
The south Texas judge secretly taped beating his daughter with a belt has been disciplined by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams, who hears family-law cases, was issued a public warning by the commission, dated September 4. The 2004 video (after the jump) was…
Free for All: Fall for Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, Linarejos Moreno and the Chevron Fiesta Sinfonica
Last year was a stellar season for the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater. It was the company’s tenth anniversary, and DWDT pulled out all the stops to celebrate, including the world premiere of Camille Claudel. On Friday, the company kicks off the new season with Fall for Dominic Walsh Dance Theater,…
Ever Heard of a $427,500 Mix CD?
Back in the dark ages of Internet piracy, a Rhode Islander by the name of Joel Tenenbaum made the choice of illegally downloading/sharing music online and the mistake of getting caught. The record companies wanted to make an example out of him and nine years later, it looks like they’re…
National Rice Month: Strawberry Cream Rice Krispies Treats
September is National Rice Month, and in honor of this glorious grain, I’ve decided to cook and sample a few rice dishes in and around Houston. I don’t know what exactly it says about my household that we have an extra-large box of (generic) “Rice Krispies” but no actual rice…
Houston Concert Calendar: Find Any Show In Town
Got plans this weekend? Cancel them and go support live music instead. Like Buxton up there, Saturday at Walters with Lucero’s Ben Nichols. Rocks Off is here to help with our freshly updated calendar of Houston concerts. The listings are sortable by artist, venue and even price, if you like…
The Houston Chronicle‘s New, “Improved” Web Site: Day Six & It’s Still Front-Page News
The Houston Chronicle has taken time out from promising its overworked staffers more barbecue (in lieu of raises) to initiate an elaborate roll-out for its redesigned homepage. There was a party at Hotel Zaza for “community leaders”:…
Kathy Reichs: Bones Are Forever and the Death of Innocence
The opening scene of Bones Are Forever, Kathy Reichs’s new novel, is gruesome. Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan finds a dead baby girl, her tiny body bloated and covered in maggots. The infant has been stuffed into a bathroom vanity, shoved behind a rusted drainpipe. It’s a tough scene to read…
Freed Randy Blythe, Lamb of God Coming to Houston December 6
Now that Lamb of God front man Randy Blythe’s Czech prison vacation is over, he and his bandmates are heading out onto the road to make up the dates they had to cancel over the summer. The metal act will be in Houston on December 6 at Bayou Music Center…
My Last Supper: Rudy’s Bar-B-Q
Everyone has that one place, that one food haven that delivers every time. Tried, true and reliable. As I’m moving to Washington D.C., I had to visit Rudy’s Bar-B-Q one last time. I will fondly miss it. The whole experience at Rudy’s, from the bright red barn, to the neon…
Comment of the Day: The Houston Chronicle‘s No-Raise, But More BBQ Policy
We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it’s time we paid some damn attention to them. So we’ll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning or afternoon from the previous day’s work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous…
Video Game Atlas: Gold Saucer
Once a week Art Attack will offer you a handy little travel guide to the fictional worlds of video games. Name: Gold Saucer, Final Fantasy series Population: 8,431 employees live on site, plus additional residents of North Corel and Corel Prison Government: Privately owned resort My last destination was the…
30 Seconds With Ryan Beatty
When the opportunity to interview a fast-rising 16-year-old pop star named Ryan Beatty, I initially wrote him off as a Bieber clone, which would be like aural equivalent of Xeroxing the act of stepping on a LEGO. When I did finally sit down and give a listen to Beatty though,…
Middle School Throwback: They Still Make Lunchables and I Ate One!
I wish I could say I had the strength to walk by a Lunchable priced at the low, low price of one dollar and just leave it lying there in the cooler…but clearly I cannot. We were shopping at H-E-B Montrose the other day when I noticed a bin full…
Neiman Marcus Art of Beauty Event, Grab All the Freebies You Can
Fashion’s Night Out kicks off this week, September 6, and Neiman Marcus will be celebrating with a ten-day “Art of Beauty” event. If you didn’t get your little Neiman Marcus booklet in the mail, allow us to give you an overview of why you should stop by Neiman’s…every single day…
Yes Indeed Music Fest Coming To Dean’s and Notsuoh
Houston gets another mini-music festival to add to its already busy calendar with the announcement of Yes Indeed Music Fest, set for September 29 at Dean’s and Notsuoh on Main in the heart of downtown. Acts like dUNETX, Alkari, The Gold Sounds, The Wrong Ones, The Fox Derby and Screwtape…
A Whimsical Night Under the Grand Chapiteau
Cirque du Soleil is not the circus experience most of us grew up with. For a few hours, it’s a magical, almost surreal experience for all your senses. The Cirque’s latest show, Kooza, has been in Houston since July, the expansive grounds of the Sam Houston Race Park once again…
Hurricane Season Is Over for Houston!! (According to Our Bold Prediction); Cooler Weather on the Way, God’s in His Heaven, Etc., Etc.
Yeah, you heard me. It might sound like a bold prediction, but it’s actually safer than you think. I’ve often told my friends that my favorite day of the year is October 1. The reason for this is that football season has started, basketball training camp is about to open,…
Pop Rocks: This Scientology “Wife Audition” Thing Sounds Pretty Awesome
The October issue of Vanity Fair contains an article about the mating habits of Scientologists (Tom Cruise, specifically) that’s already got the “church” sounding battle stations: Cruise’s rep Bert Fields tells ET, “Vanity Fair’s story is essentially a rehash of tired old lies previously run in the supermarket tabloids, quoting…
Five Ways to Avoid Political Fights on Facebook This Election Season
It’s almost funny to look back now on those occasionally annoying e-mails we all got from relatives who liked to pass along rumors and popular myths that could easily be debunked using Snopes. When that happened, we could pretty much just ignore it or, if we were feeling a particular…
Game Day Snacks: Baked Tequila Lime Wings
Football — it’s finally here! I can’t wait to throw on a jersey, stress over my fantasy team and get drunk while watching the games every weekend. But just as important, I can’t wait to eat a shit ton of wings, really, really good wangz. I like to bake mine…
“In The Air Tonight”: 5 Things About What Has Somehow Become Sport’s Biggest Get-Psyched Song
We had 790’s Big Show on yesterday as we were coming in to the office, and the subject turned to pre-game get-psyched songs, a discussion triggered by the lameness of Clay Walker’s Texans anthem “It’s Football Time In Texas.” Co-host Lance Zierlein began tossing out possible replacements, which seemed heavy…
Has Nintendo Lost a Golden Opportunity With Wreck-It-Ralph?
As the Houston Press’s video game expert, I’m understandably anticipating Disney’s Wreck-It-Ralph intensely. I got to see the trailer while taking the kid to Brave, and from the looks of it, we might have this generation’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on our hands. In case you haven’t heard anything about…
Mobile Vendors Get Mobilized to Combat Food Truck Laws
Do you know why you never see trucks with hot food downtown? It’s because a City of Houston ordinance prohibits trucks with propane tanks from being in that area. The same goes for why there is no seating around food trucks, and really, who wants to eat standing up? Because…
Hamell on Trial: A One-Man Musical Tornado
Ed Hamell, who performs as Hamell on Trial, is not your average acoustic-guitar solo act. The first time I saw him, at the old Fabulous Satellite opening for Syd Straw and the Skeletons, I didn’t know what to expect. Within a couple of songs, with that little piece of wood…
Some Texan-Flavored Prop-Bet Appetizers Before The First NFL Sunday
We are about 72 hours away from the first Sunday of the NFL season, a season that is undoubtedly the most highly anticipated in the history of the Texans since their inaugural campaign in 2002. This means we are also 24 hours away from my first “Weekend’s Best Bets” posts,…
A Houston Rap Album Worth Buying: LeCrae’s Gravity
Tuesday, Houston native LeCrae delivered his sixth full-length album Gravity on his own imprint Reach Records. It’s unapologetic (as it should be), eye-opening and features a man who’s taken his newfound success (BET appearance, his Church Clothes mixtape hosted by DJ Don Cannon) and carried it further, all without losing…
The First Food Truck Friday Kicks Off Tomorrow at Lunch
Although I won’t be there to kick off the inaugural Food Truck Friday (with any luck, I’ll be a few beers deep at ChurchKey by lunch tomorrow), you aren’t going to want to miss this fun new once-a-month event from the Houston Press. Starting tomorrow, we’ll be hosting these Food…
Predictions for the Cast of Jersey Shore
Last week, the nation argued over the intent of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s speech at the Republican National Convention. Was he out for self, does he have his sights set on a seat in the White House and how are his arteries holding up lately? Different portions of the…
Deep Time Goes on a Ghostly Holiday in “Gold Rush”
As the resident goth expert I am required to morbidly obsess about death for a certain number of hours a year in order to maintain my license. Luckily, Austin’s Deep Time has come through with a new video directed by Cassandra Hamilton that explores the afterlife in such a wonderful,…
Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators
Some people were born to lay tile; some were born to be policemen; Slash was born to play guitar. Now that he seems to be free and clear of the albatross that was Guns N’ Roses, maybe people will shut up and let him explore. March’s “reunion” rumors and ensuing…
From the Window to the Wall
There’s something startlingly noncommittal about many of the initial reviews of The Master that leaked out following the impromptu screenings writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson organized in 70mm-equipped houses across the country, and later in response to the film’s official bow at the Venice Film Festival. This is perhaps the natural,…
Mamet’s November Lacks Bite
Whatever happened to David Mamet? The testosterone-fueled playwright — responsible for Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo and Sexual Perversity in Chicago and films The Untouchables and The Verdict — has had a dramatic change of heart, or some other organ. His politics have veered sharply from left…
Capsule Art Reviews: “Drawings & Air Conditioning,” “Glass Graphica,” “James Turrell: Holograms,” “Lillian Warren: Wait With Me,” “Michael Petry: Bad Restoration”
“Drawings & Air Conditioning” With its current show, Front Gallery clearly wants to lure you out into the summer heat and into its Montrose bungalow space. There’s a free-form, experimental feel throughout many of the selections on view in the show, especially prevalent in the five pieces by Michael Blair,…
Hyro Da Chameleon
Imagine a Venn diagram with two circles. The first circle contains Z-Ro and the rest of the rappers who helped build the Houston scene. The second contains the rock fury of Bad Brains and At the Drive-In. Where those two circles meet, you’ll find Hyro Da Hero. His first album,…
Grand Incubator
KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ Austin King is a nervous ball of energy. He hops around the small kitchen at the rear of Grand Prize Bar like a character in Super Mario Brothers, head down and face fixed in a grimace of determined concentration. He pulls dumplings from a fryer with one…
Capsule Stage Reviews: Leading Ladies, Life Could Be a Dream, Next Fall, Our Town
Leading Ladies In Leading Ladies, two down-on-their luck Shakespearean actors seek to impersonate the heirs to an estate, and follow through even when they discover that the heirs were actually heiresses. Texas Rep’s artistic director, Steve Fenley, portrays Shakespearean actor Leo, and also Maxine, with verve and style, but there…
Cambodian Weed
In a small farming village hidden down dirt roads among shrubs and tall grass, everyone’s sleeping, and the rain won’t stop. It’s early afternoon on a Tuesday near Rosharon, a small town south of Houston, and the downpour has canvassed the paths with deep crevices and pockmarks, making driving all…
For a Good Time, See This Sex Comedy
Remember way back when Bridesmaids was released, and Manohla Dargis referred to it as “unexpectedly funny”? It’s amazing what still survives the editorial gauntlet at The New York Times — it’s like the Whig Intelligencer-Tribune over there. And then a couple of months ago, podcast host Adam Carolla cast his…
“Man-gina” Lawsuit
Highlights from Hair Balls COURTS Every once in a while, a lawsuit is filed in Harris County that makes us jump for joy over its allegations of pure, unadulterated cray-cray. And this latest, filed last week by the founders of Houston real estate blog Swamplot against a condo owners association…
Isn’t DACA Just a Ruse to Identify and Deport DREAM Act Students?
Dear Mexican: One of your readers wrote a question about “DREAMers,” and I have a thought on the subject. This is not a criticism, although I have criticized your column before. I know that most Hispanics in the United States are in favor of the DREAM Act, but what if…
Choice Evenings at Cafe 4212
“Houston is going to be the next big musical explosion,” says Horace Alexander Young, Texas Southern music professor and one of the featured artists at Cafe 4212’s August month-long celebration of Houston jazz greats and Houston horn players. “We’ve always had cutting-edge players, but right now something special, some kind…
Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Clarkson has managed to last a solid decade in the fickle, feverish pop world without ever really “falling off” — but then, good Texas girls are supposed to be tough, with a big-ass voice to match. The Fort Worth native moved back to her hometown about as soon as…
Uchi Takes Houston
Check out more photos from the chic interior of Uchi in our slideshow. There is a certain anxiety and trepidation to dining at Uchi for the first time. Even if you’re looking forward to your visit, even if you’ve saved your pennies and carefully made reservations for the evening and…
Akron/Family
Every bio of Akron/Family mentions some sort of tidbit about the band’s members forming their own religion, vacationing next to active volcanoes, ripping off Dan Deacon or being a precious folky act. Powerviolence act Man Is the Bastard think the band is “human manure” and “goddamned thieves,” but that’s because…
Tycho
Occupying a compelling no man’s land on the IDM scene, the elegant instrumental works of Tycho (a.k.a. San Francisco’s Scott Hansen) are too gently paced to qualify as dance-floor fodder yet so brightly melodic it would be misleading to classify them as ambient background music. Tycho’s latest full-length, Dive, continues…
Paul W.S. Anderson’s Fun, Frenetic Filmmaking
The big movie event of September will be the anticipated latest from a certain filmmaker who signs his films with the surname Anderson and a pair of initials, a prodigious talent who burst onto the scene with a stylish entry in the mid-’90s crime-thriller wave and never left. The master…
Two Gallants
Two Gallants, the folk-rock duo made up of Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel, are back with The Bloom and the Blight, their first new set of material since their 2007 self-titled release. Lead singer Stephens was in a van accident in 2010 that sidelined him for a while. The ten-track…
Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master‘s Master
“I’ve made six movies, and I feel like I’m only just finally figuring out how this business fucking works,” Paul Thomas Anderson says on an unseasonably mild August afternoon in the Astoria section of Queens, where later tonight he will preview his latest film for an invited audience at the…
