Blogs

Hair Balls got an e-mail from The Men’s View, a local podcast that models itself after, you guessed it, The View.

Apparently the show has been picked as a finalist for Sirius Radio’s “I Want to be Howard Stern” contest, which will give one lucky winner a one-time, one-hour show on Stern’s station. And by apparently, we mean, kind of, but not really.

Here’s an except from our chat with host H-Dizzle (aka Homi Barhamand):

DIZZLE: He put out a contest and the top three shows that make it in there are going to be vying to be one of the shows that he’ll pick from. So, we’re going to be one of the top three shows and then we’re going to go up to New York about mid-November, kind of.

Hair Balls: Wait, you are one of the top three shows?

DIZZLE: Yeah, we’re going to be one of the top three shows.

HB: Sorry, I’m confused. You’re going to be?

DIZZLE: Yes.

HB: So, you’ve already been selected? Or you think you will be?

DIZZLE: I’m almost positive, I’m going to be selected.

A while back, we came across a local ghost story we hadn’t heard.

Back in 1980, there was this rock cover band hear called Lic. This wasn’t just any cover band; supposedly bandleader Johnny Fixx was one of Houston’s pioneering punk rockers, and his band brought plenty of piss and vinegar to their performances where other bands would have played it straight.

The gloriously named Fixx got little comfort from his local rock star status, though, and is said to have killed himself on Washington Avenue in 1980. His spirit did not rest easy; supposedly, Fixx has been haunting the area – especially the doorway of the building that once housed Silky’s and now houses Chaise Lounge.

A chunk of the Houston art world has fled to New Orleans this weekend for the opening of Prospect.1 New Orleans, which is apparently a very big deal. Organizers say the brand-new art fair is “the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the United States…conceived in the tradition of the great international biennials.” To which we say: dang. A jaunt down I-10, and you too can check out an enormous amount of art – by 81 artists in schools, churches, art spaces and other venues such as an Ideal Auto Repair Shop. It all kicks off tomorrow, but the art will be on view for a few months.

Horror movies walk a chainsaw-thin line between frightening and unintentionally hilarious. In fact, so many inadvertently end up on the wrong side of this boundary it's hard to compile a list of bad horror movies that numbers less than a thousand. For that reason, this list will include categories of horror movies rather than individual films. That ought to only leave, oh, 950 or so.

5. Any Stephen King Movie Released Between 1986 and 2006

The Lawnmower Man, Pet Sematary, Thinner, Sleepwalkers, The Dark Half...King is one of the most prolific writers of modern times, which has resulted in a staggering number of crappy movie adaptations. Sure, you've got Misery in there, but 100 shots of Kathy Bates whacking James Caan's ankle off its Y-axis with a sledge can't make up for the horror that is...Stephen King's beard. Uh, I mean...Maximum Overdrive:

King hasn't helmed another movie since.

Save your teeth and give a solider a treat at the same time during Halloween Buy Back, a project of Operation Gratitude, which sends care packages to U.S. soldiers in the Middle East and other hot spots.

Clear Lake area dentist Cindy Flanagan will be paying $1 per pound of candy - and handing out free toothbrushes – during the Buy Back at her office on Monday afternoon. The candy will be collected and shipped to California, Operation Gratitude’s headquarters, then mailed to overseas.

“We got feed back from the troops saying that they especially wanted candy,” Carolyn Blashek, founder of Operation Gratitude, tells Hair Balls. “Not only because they enjoyed it but because they hand it out to the children where they’re serving.”

Much like Boxing Day (and who needs a holiday devoted to Mike Tyson anyway?), All Saints Day is often neglected in favor of the much more fun holiday that precedes it. We guess Christmas and Halloween just have too much glutted goodness going on.

But tomorrow’s celebration of those who’ve seen the Glory of God should not be taken lightly, unless you’re compiling a list of five wacky saints. In which case…

5. St. Arnold of Metz

Come on, Houston. You just knew this guy had to top the list. Namesake for the local brewing company, St. Arnold is the patron of hop-pickers for one very simple reason: He said beer was better than water. (The totally hilarious and not at all misogynistic discovery that a beer was better than a woman would take another few centuries.)

Bishop Arnold advised his seventh-century parishioners against drinking water, saying it was nasty and foul, and we bet it probably was. But beer, on the other hand…

Shortly after Arnold’s death, legend has it the procession carrying his body stopped at a pub and discovered the publican had only one mug's worth of beer. But that mythical mug never ran dry and Arnold got the drunken funeral he deserved. And the rest, as they slur, is history.

A college newspaper poses quite the conundrum when it comes to the Freedom of Information Act. Technically journalists can refuse turn over notes, but if a publication is receiving public funding, they must comply with record requests.

University of Houston’s student run paper, The Daily Cougar learned this earlier in the week when they were asked to turn over some of their faxes, e-mails and other documents.

“[The request is for] any documents to and from the editors, columnists and reporters of The Daily Cougar in correspondence with any and all University of Houston employees from September 1, 2008 until October 23, 2008,” Eric Bentley, Assistant General Council for the University of Houston, tells Hair Balls.

What's the best city in Texas to relocate to if you're single? Houston.

Suck on that, Temple!

The bad news: Houston is only the 23rd-best city in America for a relocating single dude or dudette.

This no-doubt-highly-scientific information comes from Primacy Relocation, which deals with such things.

Lakewood Church mega-guru Joel Osteen is working with Guns N Roses, you may be surprised to learn.

He's offering to throw in a DVD of Become A Better You with every copy of Chinese Democracy if Axl Rose "could just get the goddamned thing released," the Houston pastor said.

Actually, he didn't. But Osteen is on the same side as the group -- and NASCAR, and the Dixie Chicks, and rival megacurch pastor Rick Warren -- in a fight against the Federal Communications Commission.

Osteen and the rest are pissed that the FCC is considering allowing use of the so-called "white spaces" of the airwaves. Those spaces are unused now, and wireless companies are eager to control them.

That doesn't sit well with Osteen.

In our "WTF?" news of the day comes word that Dallas got hit by an earthquake last night. More than a dozen crack pipes were shattered after falling from lockers at Cowboy HQ in Valley Ranch (We're assuming).

We lived in Dallas for five long years and don't remember any earthquakes. And we thing we would have remembered them, even if they were like this one, a 2.5-magnitude job described by a geophysicist as feeling "like a lightly loaded truck passing by, kind of a sharp jerk and then a rapid vibration."