Making waiting for the train entertaining.

​Well my mama told me, my papa told me too
Now my mama told me, papa told me too
Well I shouldn't be here tryin' to sing these railroad blues.

Metro will ignore this parental advice Wednesday when they partake in a stunt that actually sounds like it could be quite enjoyable -- the cast of the Ensemble Theatre's current hit show Blues in the Night will be entertaining light rail passengers at a number of stations along the line.

From 12:30 until 2:30 that day, cast members will ride along and give a capella concerts at Main Street Square Station, the Downtown Transit Center, Ensemble/HCC station (of course) and the Texas Medical Center.

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From KHOU to Mamma Mia

​Who can forget Eileen Faxas, former KHOU consumer reporter (a.k.a. "Defender") and part-time anchor?

In her reports, Faxas introduced the groundbreaking method of using wacky sound effects (second item) and Benny Hill-type sped-up motion (second item) to illustrate how she was Protecting Houstonians (third item).

In 2002 she threw it all away to pursue a lifelong dream in music (second item), and has a Web site highlighting her career.

And now that career has brought her back to Houston, where she's currently appearing in the touring version of Mamma Mia! at the Hobby Center.

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James Rodriguez tells Hair Balls his concerns

​Unlike the movies, sparks don't always fly at city council meetings. It's not all Mr Smith Goes to Washington all the time. In fact, most of the time, proceedings there beat C-Span 2 in the insomnia-curing department.

Yesterday was one of the dramatic exceptions to that rule.

It happened when city Development Director Andy Icken (of Heights Wal-Mart e-mail leak infamy) and Houston Convention Center Hotel Corporation Board Chairman Ric Campo briefed the committee on the proposed consolidation of the city's Convention & Entertainment Facilities Department with Campo's HCCHC.

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Gerald Guidry probably knows how you feel, Alexander.

​We told you last week about Gerald Guidry, an extra at the Houston Grand Opera who has been accused of having sex with a 16-year-old girl at least three times in the rehearsal room and basement of the HGO facility.

His previous gig? A role in children's theater. He was part of the ensemble in Main Street Theater's production of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which probably is a good description of the day he found out the cops were eager to question him.

Shannon Emerick of Main Street tells Hair Balls that Guidry worked on a contract basis in Alexander (which closed April 1) and one other production.

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A glowing, yet again underappreciated production

​On Friday night Phillip Duggins, the head honcho of Masquerade Theatre and the director of that night's Sunday in the Park with George, walked out to do the (sadly) obligatory pre-show fund-raising pitch.

The show had already gotten glowing reviews from the previous weekend's performance, but the intimate Zilkha Hall at Hobby Center was relatively sparsely populated.

Masquerade, Duggins told the audience, is one of the rare Houston theater companies who regularly do Sondheim. With a shrug as he looked out at the empty seats, he added, "and I guess you can tell why."

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Doug Supernaw likely feels at home in Bandera

​

Since we published our 2007 cover story on troubled one-time country star Doug Supernaw, our site has become something like the de facto Web site for the former Houstonian. He now has virtually no Web presence of his own; both his own site and his fan site have long since vanished, and he went off the rails long before Facebook or even Myspace had come about.

So for the last four years, the comment boxes attached both to the link above and this one have been your best bets to find new information on the man. The most recent info placed him in Bandera, a hard-drinking little dude ranch Mecca in the hills northwest of San Antone. If there was anywhere in Texas Supernaw could be tolerated, I thought to myself, it just might be Bandera, where saloons outnumber churches by a factor of five, and the main drag rings out with hardcore Texas country just about every night.

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As in every year, people died in 2010. Famous people. Sexy people. Or people who were, at one time, both famous and sexy.

While they may have been elderly by the time they went to join the Great Majority, it is as they were in their prime that they should be remembered.

Keeping that in mind, here are the five sexiest to abandon this mortal coil in 2010.

5. Rue McClanahan
We were never big fans of the Golden Girls, where McClanahan supposedly played a sexpot. We'd like to say that back in the day she really was one, but -- unlike the other people on this list -- it's a bit of a stretch.

But feel free to enjoy her doing a terribly awkward striptease, accompanied by commentary from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew ("Ew! It's my drunk aunt at a wedding."):

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Enron, directed by (and starring?) George Clooney

​Enron -- the semi-musical, not the company -- was a hit in London's West End and a failure on Broadway.

The fact it bombed in America made it less likely we'd see a production in Houston. But now comes word out of London that George Clooney, of all people, is looking to make a movie out of the stage show.

It's movieland gossip, of course, but the U.K. Observer reports not only that Clooney is doing it, he's annoyed original members of the production by planning to direct it himself and cast it with better-known names.

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Herman Brood, Black Francis and Jason Nodler coming together

​"I am only ever interested in art/work/plays/music about how weird and fucked up it is to be a human animal on the planet earth, aware of and in necessary denial of our mortality, of the fact that each of us will die and go off the planet and be lost to memory and that everyone we know, love, admire... will too."

So says Jason Nodler amid the hours of conversation we had over a long lunch and via e-mail in the run-up to this weekend's opening night of Bluefinger: The Fall and Rise of Herman Brood.

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Keef: What he shares with Sondheim

​Reading the memoirs, back to back, of Keith Richards and Stephen Sondheim produces the cultural bends you might expect.

Sondheim's Finishing the Hat is a meticulous study of lyric writing -- and it's not intended to be full-fledged memoir -- while Richards' Life is a freewheeling stew of anecdotes meant to be read in the guitarist's wheezy, tobacco'd-chuckling semi-coherent voice.

Both are terrific. Neither has anything to do with each other.

Except for one key passage.

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