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Charlie Murphy drops into the Improv this weekend, but last week Houston Press Assistant Night & Day Editor Dusti Rhodes called him up to ask him about being Eddie Murphy’s brother, his time on the The Chappelle Show and his new show on BET, We Gotta Do Better. Here’s what he had to say …

Dusti Rhodes: Was it hard when you first started standup because you had to not only deal with the normal obstacles of being a comedian but also living up to being Eddie Murphy’s brother? How did you deal with that?

Charlie Murphy: The way I dealt with it was by not caring about it. When I first did stand up my first words to the audience was “I don’t care if you don’t like me. I don’t care if you think this is funny. I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for me and if you don’t like what I’m saying then fuck you.” And they thought that was funny that I said that, but that was how I really felt. “I’m not here for you to approve.”

It’s interesting that you had that attitude because I was also wondering how you felt about the negative reaction to your show on BET, We Gotta Do Better [formerly Hot Ghetto Mess]. How did you respond to those who felt like the show was insulting to blacks?

As a black man, do you think it would be in my best interest to do anything that would deface, defame or belittle my own people?

In celebration of John Nova Lomax’s feature on the popularity of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, we now present seven clips of fake-rockin’ goodness.

1.) Axl Rose’s Chinese Democracy might never be finished, but we’re happy to see Slash still has folks to jam with, most notably Kelly Law-Yone and some guy named Bill Gates.

Dude, do you think the quirky, true-to-life, whip smart Juno will win the Academy Award for Best Picture? Alls I’m sayin’ is, it better. The problem is, I don’t think it will. Why? Because it isn’t the kind of film the Academy likes to reward with a Best Picture. Why? Because it isn’t about some guy who got paralyzed and learned to paint amazing still lifes with his penis or whatever. And no famous actor gained 50 pounds and got ugly to play the lead role. And the soundtrack is mostly The Moldy Peaches and not some sweeping orchestral arrangement written to make sure you know that what you’re watching is An Important Movie.

So it probably won’t win. And this pisses me off.

I’ll be straight up honest with you and say that I haven’t actually seen any of the other nominated films for Best Picture although Mr. Pop Rocks and I have a date scheduled for Friday to see No Country For Old Men. I’ll admit I love the Coen Brothers, but No Country is based on a book by Cormac McCarthy whereas the screenplay for Juno was written by a former stripper whose first name is Diablo. See why I like Juno better already?

Quanell X has taken the lead on one of the many efforts to remove Chuck Rosenthal as the Harris County District Attorney.

Look for Quanell at a downtown protest on Thursday, scheduled for noon at the Harris County Criminal Courthouse. The rally is first of many, Quanell says, until Rosenthal is gone. The DA has been in trouble in recent weeks for racist e-mails found on his computer.

Quanell, along with members of the National Black United Front, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement and the Houston Peace and Justice Center, spoke to a number of people Tuesday night at the Good Hope Missonary Baptist Church to raise support for the protest.

In our most ill-advised jaunt yet, David Beebe and I chose to walk Long Point in from the Beltway to the Hempstead Highway, and then turn southeast there to Washington, and then trek the rapidly douchifying street of dreams in to Warren’s downtown.

On paper, it didn’t seem like such a bad plan. As the crow flies, it was only about 12 miles, and Spring Branch is not a particularly dangerous neighborhood. What’s more, I was raised in the Museum District and went to high school at Jesuit in Sharpstown, so my orientation has always been toward the Inner Loop, the southwest and the west. I know a little something about Memorial, but I had literally never even driven a block down any of The Branch’s main east-west arteries. After our walk, I am still unable to tell you what the southern equivalents of Bingle, Wirt and Campbell are. In a way, this was like an out-of-town trip for me.

This would be a milk run, a breeze, as the Brits put it, a piece of piss.

Hardly. Literally the first thing I heard on waking the morning of the walk was KUHF’s weatherman reading the forecast: “It’s currently 46 degrees, and that’s about as warm as it’s gonna get. Forecasters are calling for a 90 percent chance of rain, so it’s a good day to just stay inside.”

I looked at the window and took in the rain-slicked bricks of our patio, glistening in the pre-dawn gloom. Hell, not only did it look like pure misery out there, but I was on deadline for a feature story. Wouldn’t it just make more sense to take a rain check? Weren’t days like today the reason they were called rain checks, anyway?

Nope. Not a chance. The Sole of Houston is like the United States Postal Service: Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

You may be surprised to hear this, but employees of the Houston Press often receive press releases, many of them from people who obviously never have looked at the Houston Press. They want us to write stories about bed-and-breakfasts in Vermont, new HEB stores, and popular Valentine’s Day gifts. We respectfully decline to cover them, and that’s that.

But yesterday we got a service-journalism lead we just couldn’t ignore. A woman sent us an email with the innocuous subject line “Super Bowl Tips.” When we opened it, we were assaulted with this: “Plumbing Problems Can Throw a Flag in Your Super Bowl Party Plans.” Mr. Rooter Plumbing wanted us to know that “Super Bowl Sunday is well-known for people consuming more food and drinks than usual. This means more trips to the bathroom, especially during half time, so owners should check their toilets for any potential problems before guests arrive.”

Ohmigawd, ohmigawd, ohmigawd. Alert! Alert! Alert!

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

The New Kids on the Block are getting back together.

Oh my God. Oh my GOD!!!!!

I am totally serious. For real. They are.

In German there's apparently a phrase that translates to "speaking about the weather," which doesn't necessarily mean you talked about the weather with someone; it just means y'all didn't have a whole lot to say. Anyway, we sure are glad it wasn't completely sucky outside this weekend. Not that we spent a bunch of time outdoors. We were too busy drinking, dancing and watching the Aeros lose. Twice.

Super Happy Fun Land Reopening Party

Poopy Lungstuffing, the Annoysters, Styrofoam Duck, Muzak John and Kevin 11 helped christen the new SHFL location on Polk Street. We dropped by and brought back words and pics.

Last night photog Bill Olive traveled from Kobain to Catbirds, from yupster to hipster, from alternative rock to free jazz. Click here for the pics. -- Keith Plocek

Chloe Dao, winner of Project Runway season two and native Houstonian will introduce Dead Poets Society at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston tomorrow as part of the Movies Houstonians Love series. Houston Press Assistant Night & Day Editor Dusti Rhodes called her up to chat about her decision behind the choice as well as her decision to stay in Houston.

So, the obvious question: Why did you choose Dead Poet’s Society?

That movie seriously changed my life and it’s no joke. I was actually majoring in business marketing at the University of Houston and I always wanted to be a fashion designer but I just didn’t think I could do it. After watching that movie, I was like you know what, I’m going to follow my dreams, because that movie really is about following your dreams and your heart and not listening to your parents. So, honestly, after that movie I dropped out of University of Houston, enrolled in Houston Community College with their fashion design program there and went for a weekend in New York City just to check out New York and it turned out to be a year. I just called my mom and said, “I’m not coming home!” That movie did it all it just gave me the strength to just follow my dreams and not care what people thought.

I remember on the Project Runway, you talked a lot about how you went to New York, did the New York thing, and then decided I just don’t want to do this anymore and you came back to Houston. That’s really going against the grain, as well, in terms of high fashion and what most people who want to make it do.

Exactly. The whole movie, the Dead Poets Society club, I forgot what the name of it was, the motto is “Got to do more, got to be more, got to see more” and I just live my life to do as much as I can – pretty much, that motto. And I thought, you know, I really want to follow my dream, screw it. This is my way of just experiencing my life against all the rules.

Picture, if you will, a 1980s slumber party in the `burbs starring Miss Pop Rocks and her best gal pals. The snacks? Ho Hos and Doritos. The music? Tiffany. The movie? Grease. The T-Bird Miss Pop Rocks was way hot for? Kenickie, naturally, played by Jeff Conaway. What a bad boy! What a stone fox! What a rebel!

So imagine the hell my inner child experienced when she saw her tween crush –now sporting brown teeth and a gut – have a tech at his rehab rub Icy Hot all over his bare ass. Seriously. That’s the shit they’re showing on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, and man, is it hard for the little teenybopper inside of me to take.

We've loaded up a slideshow of photos by Daniel Kramer of yesterday's flash mob pillow fight out front of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

After the jump, video from Dusti Rhodes...

I don’t know much about Harvey Pekar. I’ve never seen American Splendor. I never read his comic book. I know him primarily as a nut job who used to go on David Letterman and make Crispin Glover look sane.

So maybe I’m not the best person in the world to be reviewing his newest book. But the art of reviewing is putting aside prejudices and biases and looking at a work on its own terms. Which brings me to the book at hand, Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History, written by Pekar and various former SDS members, with art work mostly by Gary Dumm.

As the title suggests, this is a book about the radical ‘60s organization known as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). And I’ve got to confess, I found this to be a rather strange read. First there’s the format, a graphic history it’s called. Essentially, it’s a serious historical document done in graphic novel form. Second, there’s the way the story’s told, with the first quarter of the book being a summary of SDS history and the rest consisting of the tales of various SDS members.

The press release accompanying the book refers to this as a sophisticated handbook of a misunderstood organization. But I found it to be a confusing mush of history and art which gives a rather superficial treatment of a rather serious topic.

The questions of justice outlined in this week’s feature notwithstanding, the Aggies are widely known for their idiosyncratic ways. There’s the incessant howdying. The keeping off the grass. The dog, a.k.a. Reveille, a.k.a. Miss Rev, ma’am, a.k.a. the highest ranking member of the Corps.

Make fun of them, and the Aggies will cite tradition, and there’s definitely something admirable in that. You gotta assume many of the customs make sense once you put them in context. For example, we have no idea what’s going on in the following video, but we’d love to find out.

In celebration of its 35th year anniversary, Texas Monthly has released a list of 35 people who will shape the future of Texas. Cyclist Lance Armstrong tops the list (no surprise there). Texas Monthly Editor Evan Smith says, via press release, the list “highlighted the people most likely to have a material impact on all of our lives, beginning with Lance Armstrong, who may yet lead us down the path to a cure for cancer….”

It’s doubtful that any of the people from Houston are going to cure cancer, but they’re still good folks, people Houston can be proud to call its own. Among H-town big shots on the list is rapper Chamillionaire (we’re big fans of his), Matthew Simmons, who has the suspicious job title of “energy pessimist,” and Off the Kuff blogger Charles Kuffner. There’s also Pastor/Christian Singer Marcos Witt and pitcher/coach Cat Osterman. We’ve got no problem with any of those folks – they all seem to be talented, earnest people. (Thank you Texas Monthly for including only one woman from Houston – even if she does have the unfortunate name of ‘Cat.’)