Cover Story
The Iron Man
Longtime local stage phenom Ken Webster has a record to rival that of a Baseball Hall of Famer
Red Hats … Why Not?
Uh … You’ve really got us here.
Express Lane: Half-Price Beer Next Thursday at the Dell!
The Round Rock Express didn’t take long to assume their customary position atop the Pacific Coast League American Conference’s South Division, leading New Orleans by a game at 9-5 after Wednesday’s 6-1 road win over the Omaha Royals. Juan Gutierrez, the Astros organization’s next real shot at a top-shelf starter, picked up the win to…
Hey, Getty: We Found Yr Softie
Dang. That’s a realllllly BIG one.
This Week in Wal-Mart
New questions over Northcross site plans keep surfacing.
Bomb Threats: The New Black
Fake bomb threat at the School for the Deaf last night.
NFL Analysis: Haunted Is the (AFC) West
Class, in the past two weeks we said goodbye to some of my more beloved players. Drew Bledsoe retired, and now surefire Hall of Fame cat Will Shields. How many offensive linemen have had their own Boston Market commercial with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann? Just Shields. Class and brilliance, Slick Willie might be the best guard…
Cab Franchise’s Bumpy Road Continues
Cab decision keeps puttering along
Vince Young – in Loving Tribute
Vince Young catches the Madden curse
European Soccer Clubs on Collision Course
Manchester United and Chelsea continued on track for what could be an unprecedented series of showdowns next month. FA Cup semifinal wins on the weekend (Man U handled last-place Watford with appropriate ease; Chelsea had to go to the second overtime before dispatching Blackburn) set up a dream Cup Final, May 19, in the brand-new…
Kitty Carlisle Hart, 1919-2007
Kitty Carlisle, R.I.P.
Choogle x 2
Minneapolis band Chooglin’ choogle for the true chooglers.
So Few Senators, So Many Committees
Just how busy is the Lege?
To Choogle or Not to Choogle
Everything you never wanted to know about choogle
Strange Days Indeed
Florida’s governor may posthumously pardon Jim Morrison.
Oh Crap! I’ve Already Said Too Much.
Hey. STFU!
New Cab Company Sued: Fender Bender or Blood on the Highway?
Will a suit against Lone Star Cab delay awarding a new taxi franchise?
Return of the Wal-Mart Push Poll? (UPDATED)
A pro-Wal-Mart mailer hits Northcross neighbors.
The Tower Goes Black
UT to keep the tower darkened in memory of the Virginia Tech victims.
Darling, Powerful Nikki
Poet Nikki Giovanni salves souls at VTech.
Where’s That Finger Been, Reverend?
VTech: Oh, Lord, let’s not point fingers.
The Waiting Game
Concert parking catastrophes
Bomb Threat Cancels Class at St. Edward’s (UPDATED)
Classes called off until 5pm.
What Kinky Did Next
The Kinkster is back in the political saddle today.
Leffingwell’s Got It in the Bag
City to look at sacking petroleum grocery bags.
A Bad Nightmare Returns
Today’s news brings back bad memories for Austinites.
Late-Season Lonestar Rollergirls Bout: Cherry Bombs vs. Hellcats
As I entered the Austin Convention Center Sunday, April 15, for the Texas Roller Derby Lonestar Rollergirls’ bout between the Cherry Bombs and the Hellcats, SLAB’s “We Ain’t Trippin'” blasted over the banked track. While I will admit that song has often come to mind when contemplating this sport, I don’t think it’s really apt…
NFL Analysis 101: The Gangs of Fear and Evil
Well, class, this week we say “so long and thanks for all the fish” to an old friend, and when I say old friend, I mean a person I have never met before. You see my goodly student, Drew Bledsoe retired this week after 14 seasons under center in the greatest show on Earth. Drew…
Money for the Movies
The film production incentive bill is getting closer to being passed – but who will be excluded?
Too Much or Too Little?
Who were the five senators who voted against the state budget?
How Not to Make Your Case to City Council
Painful City Council moments, captured for posterity on YouTube.
Live Bloggin’ at the Queer Texas Conference
UT’s Queer Texas Conference is ON!
Austin Outlaws Home Opener Saturday Night
Join the Austin Outlaws as they get their season started tonight at House Park (located at 12th and Lamar) at 7pm. Tickets are $10 at the gate or from their Web site; the game is free for children 12 and under. the Outlaws will be hosting the Gulf Coast Herricanes from Mobile, Ala. The Outlaws…
Homo Tablin’ at the UT Queer Conference
Come on out to UT’s Queer Conference and meet Kate & K8. And Kate (Bornstein). Or at least hear her speak.
Pwned, or Who Pwns the Boston Red Sox
Driving home to San Marcos from work Sunday night, I was listening to the Red Sox and Rangers on the radio. Curt Schilling was coming off a deplorable start against Kansas City on opening day, which had already set off a regionwide suicide watch in New England. It was already looking bad in the first…
Hickenlooper vs. Chickenlooper
According to the Colorado-based group Safer Alternatives for Enjoyable Recreation – the folks behind a handful of successful pot-alcohol equalization initiatives across the country (including one at UT) that seek to bring parity to punishments related to the casual use of each substance – the number of adults arrested for minor pot possession in Denver…
Fan Club
Cavedweller’s Dirk Michener relives a rite of passage.
Lightbulb Moment at City Hall
Get yer free bulbs at City Hall, HEB …
‘Reassuring’ the Convention Center Whistle-Blowers
Would meeting with the city boss make you nervous or reassured?
Texas Relays Photo Gallery
Photographer Don Bender shot all the action at the 2007 Texas Relays meet and shares them with you here
Young Conservatives of Texas: Still Pricks
The YCT’s making a list, checking it maybe once.
TEA, Defenders of Online Copyright
A new Internet safety bill passing through Senate may not just be about protecting children from sexual predators but from being sued by the MPAA
The Common Law
Nuts and bolts of filing your tax return
Phases & Stages
Amy WinehouseBack to Black (Republic) North London’s Amy Winehouse is putting the soul back in R&B with the help of New York’s Dap-Kings (as in Sharon Jones) and a bottle of whiskey. The Jewish phenom has been churning waves (and tabloids) overseas since the release of her 2003 debut, Frank. Now the 23-year-old’s addictive “Rehab”…
Fixing 290: A Different Alternative
Build a bypass around US 290 West through Oak Hill by completing another segment of State Highway 45
Arts Review
Different Stages’ Lettice and Lovage is a treat for Peter Shaffer’s excruciatingly witty script and the easy rapport between the two lead actresses
In Print
Forty-one pick-and-choose projects for planting your paradise large or small
Phases & Stages
Grinderman(Anti-) Grinderman is in no way a conventional comedy album, but an accomplished cocksman like Nick Cave howling the “No Pussy Blues” is pretty damn funny anytime. For a man who’s (allegedly) sampled PJ Harvey and Kylie Minogue and has been (by all accounts) happily married since 1999, he makes a remarkably persuasive – and,…
Polygamous Possible Prophet Update
FLDS leader Warren Jeffs reportedly reveals he’s mere mortal
Arts Review
2007 Texas Biennial, Bolm Studios Through April 25 (Because of the significance and scope of the Texas Biennial, which is statewide in reach and spread across four Austin galleries, the Chronicle’s visual-arts writers chose to review the exhibit collectively, in a dialogue. They covered each gallery separately. The review of works in the Butridge Gallery…
Wine of the Week
Sometimes, bigger is better
Phases & Stages
Fountains of Wayne Traffic and Weather (Virgin) In anticipation of hurricane season, Fountains of Wayne proffers an uncommonly strong batch of shiny red pop songs as a salve for hot afternoon commutes with no air conditioning. Although their strivings toward pop-cultural zeitgeist seem quaint in an age of fragmentation, you have to admire Chris Collingwood…
Point Austin: Unconventional
Is the Hodge Affair the end of an era or the beginning?
Also This Week
(Last-Minute Edition)
Java Gardens
Johanes and Shinta Muljadi are back in the kitchen where they belong
How Do You Pick a Chief?
APD reviewer list raises questions about the process
Beside the Point
If this was a good year, what’s a bad one look like?
Phil’s Icehouse
Last year, Amy Simmons and her team at Amy’s Ice Creams took on a new venture that seemed like a natural
The Last Rock & Roll Deejay
KLBJ cans legendary Johnny Walker
The Hightower Report
Why Media Companies Get No Respect; NYPD’s ‘Intelligence’
Food-o-File
Openings, awards, accolades, and other assorted food goings-on
Council: Call Me a (Lone Star) Cab!
Hailing ‘unique’ business model, City Council chooses city’s newest taxi franchise
Holywood Squares?
A local church rents out the Alamo Drafthouse South for a conference on Christians and film
Air Guitar Nation
What other international competition awards points for general “airiness”? This fun documentary celebrates the weirdness but never mocks the participants.
Event Menu
April 13-19
Refugees Remain in Taylor Prison
ACLU files suit to spring children from ‘residential facility’
A Decade of Cine
El Violín kicks off the 10th Cine Las Americas Film Festival
Are We Done Yet?
Who could have foreseen that Ice Cube’s path Straight Outta Compton would lead to family-friendly movies about the complications of life in the suburbs?
Readings
Flanagan deals with the interface of race and class in Australia using brutality the same way Tom Wolfe used humor in The Bonfire of the Vanities to deal with it in America
The Power of Three
With ZZ Top mowing down the Backyard this weekend, the power of three – trios – comes into play
Developing Stories: What Would Andrés Duany Do?
The town-planning messiah fixes Austin.
Film News
Stars litter the Austin landscape, the real Oprah Effect, and other nuggets of film info
Firehouse Dog
A Hollywood pooch gets lost during a stunt and ends up a stray outside a downtown firehouse captained by a single dad with a stubborn school-skipping son.
Readings
What do you do if you’ve invented a character who embodies the violent rejection of modern society, and that character becomes more popular than you ever dreamed he would?
Tommy Shannon
‘I Live in Trios’
More Developing Stories
A calendar of upcoming urban planning events
DVD Watch
Twin Peaks: The Second Season, Dog Day Afternoon HD, and Old Joy
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
Absurdist non sequiturs and deadpan pauses emanate from an animated milkshake, a box of french fries, and a ball of ground beef.
Page Two: Legacy and Lunacy
Rush Limbaugh and Waterloo Records leave their marks – in very different ways
Phases & Stages
Stephen MarleyMind Control (Tuff Gong/Universal) Stephen Marley’s solo debut is everything a modern reggae album should be. Producer of myriad Marley family recordings, Stephen – Bob and Rita’s second son – has developed an ambitious ear resulting in five Grammys, more than any other reggae artist in history. Mindful of the music’s deep roots yet…
On the Lege: TXU Meltdown
TXU says FU, then backs down
TV Eye
War and Remembrance: Part III
Glastonbury
The sense of total immersion in England’s Glastonbury Festival is breathlessly complete in Julien Temple’s everywhere-at-once music documentary.
Oops!
Our latest batch
Phases & Stages
The Frames The Cost (Anti-) Following 2005 scorcher Burn the Maps, the Frames’ sixth studio disc goes for broke and comes up bust. While the Irish darlings always harbored epic ambitions, The Cost’s overblown arrangements, trite songwriting, and frontman Glen Hansard’s hopelessly predictable whispers building into cringing falsetto result in maudlin caricatures. Even Colm MacConiomaire’s…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “I thank you for being here. Twenty-n… 28 of my colleagues on the Senate floor join me in thanking you and your friends and family for being with us today.” – Sen. Florence Shapiro, to Muslims in the Texas Senate gallery, after Sen. Dan Patrick left the floor in protest of…
Disturbia
Up-and-comer Shia LaBeouf is a young actor to watch, but he’s had better opportunities than this teen thriller to show what he’s capable of.
Letters @ 3AM
Family life in the Bible mirrors the worst in anyone’s family
Phases & Stages
LCD SoundsystemSound of Silver (DFA/Capitol) If you were at a club and heard “Get Innocuous!,” the lead track to LCD Soundsystem’s sophomore album, Sound of Silver, you’d be hard-pressed not to throw your hands in the air, then wave them like you just don’t care. Deep, repetitive grooves match fat synth lines, and something primal…
TCB
Cowboys and bluesmen at the Alamo Drafthouse’s new home, Moose and conjunto on the Eastside, an ailing Crack Pipe, a cranky cigarette company, and other nutty notions
Fuse Box: Supercharged
In its third year, Refraction Arts’ Fuse Box Festival has evolved from the Little Festival That Could into the Amazing Colossal Fest
Jagadam
Telegu-language film about a man who wishes to become the local don.
After a Fashion
Stephen hands out Fashion Crimes Against Humanity tickets and dips into the Gallery of the Absurd
Phases & Stages
The FratellisCostello Music (Interscope) Glasgow’s Fratellis were hoisted above the stockpile of SXSW 07 buzz bands by Pete Townshend with a rousing live collaborative on the Who’s “The Seeker.” The trio’s brash and boisterous debut, Costello Music, staggers in comparison. Lacking the Libertines’ erratic edge, the Fratellis forgo the Rakes’ cycle of “Work, Work, Work…
Arbitrary Justice at TYC
Joseph Galloway – one of first inmates released from troubled Texas Youth Commission system post new oversight – files federal suit, names as co-defendants the guards who allegedly assaulted him during his incarceration, the guards who failed to protect him, and TYC
UT Performing Arts Center: Wadsworth announces retirement
Pebbles Wadsworth, who has run the UT Performing Arts Center for 15 years now, will step down from her position as director of the UT PAC as of New Year’s Day 2008
Day Trips
The Brown Ranch and Hummer House south of Christoval is the summer home of the largest concentration of black-chinned hummingbirds
Phases & Stages
Dr. DogWe All Belong (Park the Van) “The thing the Sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had.” So said John Lennon, and Dr. Dog, in their continued mining of the Beatles’ every beat, fully embraces those nostalgic possibilities on their fourth and most polished release, We All…
Revisiting the Capitol View Corridors: Where’s the View?
Window for public comment on Downtown Commission report on corridors closes after May 4
Zachary Scott Theatre Center: A stage for a diva
The new theatre being built by the Zachary Scott Theatre Center already has a name: the Karen Kuykendall Stage, in honor of the Austin native and award-winning performer
Soccer Watch
High school championship tournament rolls into Round Rock, and more
Phases & Stages
Andrew BirdArmchair Apocrypha (Fat Possum) Taking flight from the retro swing of his Bowl of Fire, Chicago-based troubadour Andrew Bird gets comfortable in the nest he’s been building since 2003’s Weather Systems. While nothing on his Fat Possum debut, Armchair Apocrypha, is as instantly engaging as “Fake Palindromes” from 05’s Andrew Bird & the Mysterious…
Keystone Kriminals Kaught
Burglars sing like birds to Sheriff’s Office detective
‘The Barber of Seville’: Oh, we meant to do it this way
With Bass Concert Hall no longer available, Austin Lyric Opera is working to stage The Barber of Seville in a hall with no orchestra pit, no proscenium, and no wing space
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Forrest Gump’s soft-porn origins, and Oprah knows molting
Phases & Stages
Bright EyesCassadaga (Saddle Creek) Named for a Florida spiritualist community, Bright Eyes’ seventh studio LP takes its tenuous conceit from communion with the dead. Although Conor Oberst has never been particularly well-attuned to voices outside of himself, Cassadaga manages a better balance of the political and personal as exemplified on “Four Winds” and “Cleanse Song.”…
Happenings
April 12-19
Arts Review
Zachary Scott Theatre Center’s production of the baseball drama Take Me Out is powerful evidence that theatre is also a team sport and we’re all playing together
Dan Patrick vs. the Budget
Sen. Dan Patrick still isn’t happy with billions in tax cuts.
Luv Doc Recommends: Chaparral’s 25th Anniversary Party
Last Saturday it sleeted. In April. In Austin. That can’t be a good sign. This Saturday you may want to pack a Kevlar umbrella for the plague of amphibians that will surely rain down – probably frogs or toads, but you don’t want to rule out Barton Springs salamanders. The Almighty is not without a…
