Houston News Blog

Lee Child’s use of allegory in his latest Jack Reacher novel Nothing to Lose would make William Faulkner proud. Caught between the towns of Hope and Despair in Colorado, Reacher gets stuck when people want him gone which only makes him more determined to stick around.

Set upon by four louts in an unfriendly restaurant, the six-foot-five Reacher dispatches them in his usual efficient manner after warning them that they really don’t want to give him a hard time. Then after he shows them why by hammering them into the ground, he, not they, is arrested and subsequently found guilty of vagrancy and deported from the town.

So he, of course, comes back again and again. Although what he comes back to isn’t much.

Be sure to scope these preview photos of the Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark...

Fasten your grip tape and polish those trucks, all you skaters. Finally, there’s a place to grind the rails and carve up the bowls without the cops busting your balls. That’s right, the city’s first skate park, located along the Buffalo Bayou, opens up to the public this Sunday.

When I first moved to Houston eight years ago, I found myself asking several questions:

Is it legal to make freeways this wide?

Is this furniture salesman for real and is he actually going to save me money?

Oh my God, what the Hell is slime in the ice machine and why the Hell is that older man in blue glasses talking about it so much?

Why not pronounce the H in Humble?

And, perhaps most important, Why do they let someone’s old gym teacher do the weather here?

If “Lost” were a girl, she’d be that girl who always lets you get to second base and then keeps her knees pressed firmly together even after you’ve told her she’s got eyes that are like the windows to her soul or some crap like that. If “Lost” were a guy, he’d be that dude you meet at a party who spends hours talking with you and flirting with you, acts completely bemused and delighted by everything you’re saying, says he’s gonna call you…and never does.

“Lost” is just a big old tease, but like a bad relationship, I can’t get away. I can’t break up with “Lost.”

Okay, enough with the damn dating metaphors already.

Mireille Hassenboehler and Simon Ball in Little Dancer

Trust Canadian choreographer James Kudelka to take the posture of Edgar Degas’s iconic sculpture La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans and impose the little girl’s titled head and hands-clasped-behind-the-back motif onto a bunch of men. That’s so cool.

The world premiere of Kudelka’s Little Dancer last Thursday for Houston Ballet’s “Four Classics, Five Tangos” repertory evening was a typical immersion into this creative choreographer’s mind. Forget Degas’s love of the classical ballerina baby -- this ballet was all about men and contemporary movement and sound. Set to Philip Glass's Symphony No. 8 (with a shout-out to Maestro Ermanno Florio and the Houston Ballet Orchestra) this dance for 12 men and five women begins with a 20-minute-long section in which the men pose thoughtfully in fourth position before dashing to and fro across the stage in elegant, yet somehow frantic, patterns. Dressed in Denis Lavoie’s black kilts and knee socks, they are vaguely reminiscent of ballerinas in tutus, yet more powerful, and more self-possessed. When setting this new work, Kudelka mused whether men were the new women in ballet. In this one, they are indeed.

UH President and Chancellor Renu Khator says she loves athletics but she doesn’t want to be on the sidelines if any new medical schools are handed out in the state.

“We can be top tier without a medical school so it’s not a must for us,” she said in a face to face with the Press at her office last week. But if she had her druthers, she’d like one and she thinks Houston, the fourth largest city in the country deserves its own med school. And when she rates the top three strengths of Houston, “health” is in there right next to “energy” and “the arts.”

She also thinks UH “is really not funded for excellence.” You don’t build top ranked schools on the backs of enrollment, she says, so she’s looking for the state to cough up some more cash. And she finds absurd the idea that a state like Texas would have only two public research universities.

Are you living in poverty? Do you dislike the poverty lifestyle? Do you have $25 ($30 at the door)? Then you might want to check out tonight’s talk by Houston Vetter, “Bust Loose From Poverty,” at CenterPoint, 1920 Hollister, 713-932-7224. (CenterPoint is described on its site as a “spiritually based, non-profit educational center for mind, body and spirit.”)

So who is Houston Vetter? Well, he’s a “Human Potential Expert” who helps people discover their “unique power to attract boundless prosperity, optimum health, and lasting happiness.”

I called up Vetter (whose first name is Gerhard) to ask why he’s charging people to learn how to “bust loose” from poverty.

“You’re thinking,” Houston said, “…from the concept that money’s real and that money’s limited.”

He was of course correct. I was, in fact, thinking that money is “real.” Which just proves why I need to go to his lecture tonight.

Welcome to a four-day week. Hell. Yeah. We hope Memorial Day treated y'all right. On with the show.

11:27 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Voxtrot, Car Stereo (Wars), The Mathletes and Skull Gang Disco played the MFAH on Saturday, May 24, for the Starbucks Mixed Media Music Series. We got plenty of photos.

During his 34-year career in law enforcement—23 of those as a Detective/Sergeant with the Houston Police Department Homicide Division-- Sgt. Brian Foster always kept both his notebook and his ears open.

But not just to record the confessions, bizarre incidents, statements, stories, and lies that were told him by both cops and crooks. Like any good sociologist of the streets, he was collecting material, and many of the best tales featuring junkies, winos, burglars, wife-beaters, fellow officers, and lawyers appeared in his self-published book Homicidal Humor.

It was written under his pseudonym of “Von Auld Kopp” (read it aloud) to understandably avoid certain, uh, repercussions. A disclaimer about stories being embellished, secondhand, or outright “fiction” was also (wink, wink) included.

Now on the verge of retirement, Foster has penned a sequel, More Homidical Humor, and this time under his own name. Houstoned trolled through its pages and took a tour of the seamy (and often stinky) underbelly of Houston crime and criminals, and spoke with Foster about his new beat of the printed page.

It’s a tough competition, but we think we have a clear winner for Most Thin-Skinned Organization in town: The Friends of BARC.

BARC is, of course, the city pound. FOB is a private non-profit that does things for the pound, like buy equipment. They also spend an inordinate amount of time bitching if the publicity they get is not absolutely 100 percent glowing.

We wrote an item in Hair Balls about how members of another group were complaining about Friends of BARC’s close relationship with BARC. There were claims FOB was “gaming the system” to get the best dogs.

CNN Money recently ran a short piece about myths surrounding saving gas (e.g. filling your tank in the morning is supposed to be more fuel efficient, but it really isn’t).

Now Miss Pop Rocks doesn’t know much about when’s the best time to filler up, but she can offer you a few handy tips for getting around the city without feeling the proverbial pinch at the pump.

1. Run everywhere.

2. Hitchhike as often as possible. Remember that shaggy-haired guys in vans make for great conversationalists.

Send the little fundamentalists home.

That was the decision earlier today as a state appellate court ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize some of the more than 400 children they took into custody during a three-day raid in early April of the 1,700-acre Yearning For Zion Mormon fundamentalist ranch in West Texas.

The Texas Court of Appeals, Third District in Austin, stated in an opinion that the evidence presented by the state was “legally and factually insufficient” to allow the state child welfare department to maintain custody of the children of 38 mothers. This ruling did not involve parents of all the children removed from the ranch.

After the jump, we present three videos, shot by Daniel Kramer, of the dwarf tossing (and bowling and dancing) event that went down this past weekend at All Stars Men's Club...

In celebration of Bea Arthur’s recent birthday, the geniuses at VH1’s “Best Week Ever” decided to put together a list of the top ten Bea Arthur clips.

Now I love Bea Arthur for a lot of reasons, but I love her most because of “The Golden Girls.” For those of you who don’t know, “The Golden Girls” was the best fucking show ever to air in the history of television period end of conversation. I first fell in love with the gals around the time I started babysitting. It was the late 1980s, and like most preadolescent sitters, I quickly discovered the many perks that came with being put in charge of the safety of small children. Now I was a good kid, mind you. No beer, no boys, not even any snooping through drawers. But there was still plenty to keep me occupied until the parents came home from their date night, most importantly free food and unrestricted television!!

Now for some people that last bonus might not seem like much of a prize. But coming from a family of five people and one TV set, I reveled in having a night to myself without my brother whining that what I wanted to see was stupid or my mother reminding us that it was time for her weekly “Dallas” fix.

And now, we present a newscast from the heart of Daisetta, Texas, where a sinkhole is threatening to swallow all of Liberty County...

The relatively well-known younger sister of a fabricated pop star exchanged vows this past Saturday with an upper middle class young man from the posh suburbs of Chicago who has attempted to create a punk rock affectation although the band he fronts is quite slickly produced and well-funded.

The bride, also a fabricated pop singer created by a Svengali father who once publicly commented about the size of his oldest daughter’s breasts, wore a gown by Monique Lhuillier. The groom, who once starred in a video with an orangutan, chose his English bulldog to serve as the couple’s ring bearer.

Those in attendance included the fabricated pop star herself, well-known for a somewhat humorous and certainly planned comment about tuna fish, the boyfriend of the fabricated pop star – an important athlete – and the fabricated pop star’s former assistant, who brought along her boyfriend, the bald black guy from “Scrubs” who was also in “Clueless.” Also in attendance was Nicole Richie.

We've just loaded up a couple batches of nightlife action from photog Bill Olive.

First up are these snaps from Friday night, shot during the final performance of Les Femmes de la Nuit.

And then on Saturday night we returned to Numbers, one of our favorite places to people-watch.

And now you can feel free to start your work week. -- Keith Plocek

This was a weekend of opposites. Hot sun and cool breezes. Slick pop and sloppy dining. Death and rebirth. Let's get to it.

Radiohead in the Woodlands

The Brits returned to Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on Saturday, May 17. We brought back words and pictures.

World Gyro Eating Championship

Grown men stuffed themselves silly at the Festival of Greece.

Last night it was a love fest in one room of the library at the University of Houston’s main campus.

The new president and chancellor Renu Khator was up there in front of the special invited guests just prior to introducing the four new regents, and she was sharing her vision of what it will take for UH to move to Tier 1 status.

Everyone was doing the nods and giving the amens as she talked about the great work of the previous UH leaders and how the school is poised to move on to the next step, which it will do with an enthusiastic, energized board and everyone – legislators and common community folks alike – pitching in on the march to greatness.

My friend Kyle e-mailed me this past week. The subject line was Oh My God! and the e-mail itself was all about Madonna’s upcoming world tour. I guess he thought I liked Madonna. I mean, why else would he e-mail me about this?

Here’s the deal. I have never actually purchased a Madonna album, but I know 500 facts about Madonna. I know Madonna is Madonna’s real name, and her mom died when she was just a kid, and she studied dance, and when she showed up in New York City in the late 1970s she told the cab driver to take her to the center of it all and she only had $35 in her pocket or something like that. I know she was married to Sean Penn and now she’s married to Guy Ritchie. I know she wrote a children’s book and I know she played Evita in “Evita.”

I also have 500 memories associated with Madonna. I remember going to my friend Vanessa’s house circa 1986 and dressing up like Madonna and taking snapshots of ourselves. I remember a priest visiting my Catholic school classroom and telling us it was wrong to listen to Madonna because her name mocked that of the Virgin Mary. (“But Father,” Raffaela Sabato protested, “that’s her real name!”) I remember my BFF Lisa calling me totally flipping out after the “Like a Prayer” Pepsi ad had aired. (“She was like, burning crosses!”) I remember driving around with girlfriends in high school singing along to “Holiday.” I remember figuring out that “Papa Don’t Preach” was about teenage pregnancy. I remember staying up trying to catch a glimpse of the “Justify My Love” video on MTV just before they decided to ban it. (I never did see it.) I remember watching “Dick Tracy” and “A League of Their Own” in the theaters. I remember I was in college when Lourdes was born. I remember her kiss with Britney.

In the beginning, God populated the planet with lush foliage. Then he gave us the sweet leaf and it was good…real good. And thus the weed of wonder begat Louis Armstrong…who begat Cheech and Chong…who begat Jeff Spicoli…who begat Snoop Dogg…and, well, uh, man, who’s got the Twinkies?

In Pot Culture, readers find out everything they wanted to know about marijuana, but were too stoned to ask. An easy, breezy and entertaining read, this reference guide belongs on your bookshelf right next to that hollowed-out Bible that holds your one-hitter.

Compiled by a writer for Entertainment Weekly and a former editor of High Times, the text is broken down into several sections, all generously illustrated with photos.

The encyclopedia offers definition of must-know stoner terms like bogart, cottonmouth, Bob Marley and Maui Wowie. Breakout articles include such important areas as “Stoner Etiquette 101” (pass to the left!), “A Guide to Rolling Papers,” “Stoner Colleges,” “Famous Pot Busts” and “Keeping Your Buds Fresh.” And there are also plenty of guides to the best in stoner music, movies, TV, destinations and jam bands.