Cover Story
Cine Joven Sin Fronteras
Teaching technology, telenovela, and how to straddle two countries and two cultures with a camera
The Gay Place
What’s gayer than a coronation? We are!
Extended Hacienda
More with Hacienda’s piano man Abraham Villanueva
Aztex Roundup, UT Preview, and More
The Austin Aztex U-23s earned three top honors in the Premier Development League all-league selections recently announced: Wolfgang Suhnholz as Coach of the Year, Beto Papandrea as Defender of the Year, and Miguel Gallardo Goalkeeper of the Year… To no one’s surprise, the Aztex have announced Gallardo as their first pro signing for the USL…
Wynn on Wind
Austin mayor to talk energy reform to presidential campaigns next week.
Pete Collins, City’s IT Chief, Resigns
Departure ends strange personnel question lingering all summer
Cox to Sell ‘Statesman’
Local daily held by Atlanta chain since 1976
Yo, It’s QB Mustard, Chillaxin’ With the Axe in the Home Theatre Room!
Man, Hasbro is not making any friends these days. On the heels of the legendary game maker’s lawsuit over net application Scrabulous – which resulted in the wildly popular Scrabble knockoff getting knocked off the Facebook site – Hasbro has now announced a radical revamping of its classic board game, Clue. In an ill-advised effort…
Batfest Flies to South First Street
Fest schedule resolved; reservations about Downtown closures continue
Queen for a Day
Mingling with royalty has gone to your humble Gay Place’s head.
Angry All the Time
Geezerville takes names
‘Thunder’ the Dunderhead?
The “R” word controversy comes to Central Texas
Penn and the Texas Primary
What the Clinton memos reveal about her campaign after Texas.
ACL Aftershows Announced
The reunited Butthole Surfers finally confirmed a local engagement. The catch? It’s an official afterparty for the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival at Stubb’s on Saturday, Sept. 27, with the Kills. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially for those who don’t plan on attending the festival, but it’s not exactly an ideal setting…
Rove A-Hoy!
Bush’s best bud back in state fundraising for GOP.
RIP Isaac
Daaaamn right
Ziro the… Whut?
George Lucas’ new alien from planet WTF.
Who Needs Owls When You’ve Got No Rules?
Bush administration still slicing at environmental protections
TIme to Talk SXSW Film 09
Yes, it’s time to submit entries for the 23rd South By Southwest Film Conference and Festival, which is coming up March 13-21. The early submission deadline is Nov. 14. And fans can register now for the 2009 event and guarantee a cheaper rate and choice hotels. Speaking of SXSW, “Peter and Ben” by Pinny Grylls…
Victory Grill: Makeover Edition
A new mural puts history back on the Eastside
Latest ‘Star Wars’ Stirring Up Controversy
Mix fanboys, LucasFilm, and conspiracy theory, and you’ve got something of a perfect storm, which is what’s been brewing over at Harry Knowles’ Aint It Cool News site. Readers have been sounding fury ever since Knowles’ pan of the upcoming animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars was pulled from the site. Actually, “pan” is pretty…
Shotgun Stories
Shotgun Stories 2007, PG-13, 92 min. Directed by Jeff Nichols, Starring Michael Shannon, Douglas Ligon, Barlow Jacobs, Natalie Canerday, Glenda Pannell, Lynnsee Provence. Austin filmmaker Nichols will be in attendance for this drama about a feud that erupts between two brothers after their father’s death. See austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:640102 and austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:546719 for interviews with the director.See austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:640102…
What’s Johnston Now?
East Austin high gets new name
Why Rick Is No Dick
As list of GOP vice-presidential hopefuls shortens, Texans are absent.
Sugar, Sugar
Smacking bubblegum to the beat
On the Corner of Gay and…
Second Baptist on San Antonio is not going to have to change its stationery any time soon.
HD-55 And the Other Texas Two-Step
Bell County seat to have special and general election on same day.
aGLIFF Party Exclusives
Here’s the low down on aGLIFF’s parties.
Killing in the Name: Lolla 2008
A look back at the weekend’s rage
Hang With the TXRG This Weekend
Double-header of fundraisers this weekend: One for the Texas Rollergirls, one with them
FBI Investigating Deadly Drug Raid at Home of Maryland Mayor
Police admit they F-ed up in raid of mayor’s home
Where Were You on March 4?
Texas Libertarian Party wants lists from Travis County GOP
The Westside Social Club
Another Texas music legends gets a toast
Medi-Pot Patients Win Again
California judges say medi-pot laws don’t conflict with federal pot prohibition
Texas Platters
Jim Stringer & the AM Band Triskaidekaphilia (The Music Room) “Triskaidekaphilia” is a fascination with the number 13, and the baker’s dozen delivered on local guitar standard Jim Stringer’s 13th recording gives just cause. Opening “Rebel Rouser” maneuvers through a primer of classic allusions with T. Jarrod Bonta’s piano rolling honky-tonk fire. Most tracks are…
Headlines
This week’s news with a capital ‘N’
Restaurant Review
The Amsterdam is comfortable, informal, and friendly in the laid-back way that has always been Austin’s hallmark
Texas Platters
Yuppie Pricks Balls. (Chicken Ranch) Over their six years together, Austin’s Yuppie Pricks’ role-playing punk schtick has depreciated somewhat, their eponymous stereotype now supplanted by the hipster douche bag as pop-cultural whipping boy de rigueur. Fortunately, the Pricks compensate for their decreasing timeliness by being a better band. Balls. is tighter and beefier than 2004’s…
City Hall Hustle: Gas, Water, and Trash
There could be a higher utility bill in your future
Texas Platters
The Shake ‘Em Ups The lo-fi debut from Austin’s Shake ‘Em Ups unloads an infectious fury of strings, the trio chugging acoustic rhythms braced by banjo, Dobro, mandolin, and Andrew Austin-Petersen’s stellar stand-up bass. Fusing old-time, swing, and jazz on solid folk footing, traditionals like “Jesse James” and “Hand Me Down My Walking Cane” mix…
K.Lear: Straitjacketed Shakespeare
A Denton performance artist straps on a straitjacket to explore madness in Lear
Event Menu
Help out Texas tomato growers, Austin Children’s Shelter, and the Capital Area Food Bank, and enjoy some good eats while you’re doing it
Texas Platters
Steve Earle Copperhead Road (Deluxe Edition) (Geffen) Willie Nelson Stardust (Columbia/Legacy) Few albums have dramatically upended Nashville conventions like Copperhead Road and Stardust, this year marking their 20- and 30-year anniversaries, respectively. Earle’s seminal third album from 1988 provoked his ultimate break with Guitar Town, finally producing the rock album he’d threatened and virtually ostracizing…
Point Austin: The Cost of Community
The city budget is where Austin decides how to live
Texas Platters
Murry Hammond I Don’t Know Where I’m Going but I’m on My Way (Humminbird) The solo debut from Old 97’s bassist Hammond delves deep into the roots of Americana, spiritually searching and starkly nostalgic in railroad rambling. Opening hymn “What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?” darkly mines the Handsome Family, and the Carter Family…
Art Thefts: Ripped Off While You Eat
Someone stole three paintings from a local deli and may be behind a rash of similar robberies
News Bulletin
The FDA and CDC announced that tomatoes are safe, but continue to avoid jalapeños and serranos from Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas
Naked City
News briefs from Austin, the region, and elsewhere
Reefer Madness
Pot is the gateway to hell. Who knew?
Texas Platters
Harold Ambler Carousel (Big Day) Recent Austin transplant Harold Ambler’s debut EP at age 43 is a soothing set of wizened missives drawing from a life of laid-back vagary. In light folk-pop tones, Ambler’s songs are affirmations even at their darkest (the moaning hum of opener “Carousel” and cello-backed “Crucial”). “Take This Sadness” is a…
KidsActing: The Young Ones Take Center Stage
The space known as Arts on Real gets a new name and becomes a theatre of, by, and for kids
DVD Review
José Andrés provides culinary adventure in this PBS series
Page Two: Other Shoes, Other Feet
Republicans blame it all on the Democrats, while outraged activists flirt with censorship
Texas Platters
Back Porch Mary Time of the Broken Heart (Smith Entertainment) Back Porch Mary is best served with a cold six-pack, complement to the band’s twang-fused rock riffs and ballads loosening 2am regrets. The local quartet’s fourth effort opens on do-or-die manifesto “This Band” but settles quickly into the title’s more disillusioned ruins with Mike Krug’s…
Name That School!
Cesar Chavez and East Side are among the top name choices
Book Review
Eduardo Machado shares his experience as a Cuban exile, complete with recipes, in Tastes Like Cuba
Developing Stories
Thinking big on transportation and land-use planning
The Hightower Report
Rise of the Rovians; and Bush’s Oily Lies
Just Add Students
The new Eastside high school takes issue
Food-o-File
Hatch chiles weather the storm, Jane King leaves Central Market for Patricia’s Lunchbox, Bill Norris of Fino heads to Queensland with his Bee Sting, and Bennigan’s lives on while Ararat goes nomadic
Res Publica
Some good citizenship for your to-do list this week, Aug. 7-13
ACC Eastside: Making College Real
Giving ACC a presence at East Austin high schools
Chac-Mool
A rare glimpse inside the inner circle of accordion pioneer Esteban ‘Steve’ Jordan
Enchanted Forest Not Out of the Woods
It could be a year before the forest is all up to code
Pineapple Express
A winning “bromance” between stoners, played by reigning comedy king Seth Rogen and James Franco, is at the heart of this shaggy pot story.
Art, Stunt, or Punk?
James Marsh on his dizzying documentary, Man on Wire
Remembering Anderson: What Not to Do
Lessons learned from desegregation
Texas Platters
Centro-matic/South San Gabriel Dual Hawks (Misra) Listening to Dentonite brother bands Centro-matic and South San Gabriel back to back creates discrete moods even though the players are the same. Where Centro-matic is playful, plugged in, meanderingly poignant, South San Gabriel embraces menace, melancholy, and shades of midnight. After Dual Hawks, maybe all albums in these…
AISD Scores TAKS Victories
TAKS ratings improve for many AISD schools
The Midnight Meat Train
This horror film, based on a Clive Barker short story, details the nightly exploits of a butcher who plies his trade nightly on human subway riders.
Send Your Cheek Swab to Space
A new promotional contest for Tabula Rasa sounds like the stuff of science fiction
Arts Review
Weekly World News‘ favorite cover boy is alive and well in Summer Stock Austin’s energetic show
Texas Platters
The Roy Hargrove Quintet Earfood (Groovin’ High/Emarcy) Waco-born, Dallas-bred trumpeter Roy Hargrove used to blow through town somewhat regularly with a scorching quintet that mined the funky soul jazz made famous by Blue Note and Prestige Records in the 1960s and 1970s. The two-time Grammy winner has a new quintet, and his penchant for that…
Does Austin Need Fixing? Ask Reno.
Animal shelter reform has meant less euthanasia in Reno – why not in Austin?
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Female camaraderie, nostalgic sentimentality, and emotional catharsis are back in this sequel: The film hits its marks but lacks real depth.
TV Eye
While you’re watching the Olympics, who’s watching you?
Arts Review
City Theatre honors Shrew‘s fun, wild, lusty world while putting Kate and Petruchio in a burger joint
Texas Platters
McPullish Back to Mount Zion Riddim (Charlie’s) Forty-seven minutes and one bassline: Get comfortable. McPullish’s latest dub trial is a laudable effort on the surface, incorporating eight comparable reggae vox-men who croon and wax Rastafari for Zion and peace. Problem is, it leaves no footprints. Reggae front-runner Luciano belts “Just Hold On” with little sense…
Committee Approves Bus Fare Hike
Raises approved for all except elderly and disabled passengers
A Jihad for Love
What it’s like to identify as both gay and Muslim is the topic of this brave documentary, which looks at the seemingly irreconcilable conflict.
Off the Record
Better to burn than fade away: a recap of Lollapalooza 2008
Arts Review
A refreshing, loving look at summer culture from photographer Will van Overbeek and watercolorist Melissa Grimes
Texas Platters
Topaz & Mudphonic Music for Dorothy The shrieking power hook of “Euclid Street” sums it up: “Ah yeah! Summer heat, got dirty feet and a funky beat.” Recorded in a barn on the bank of the Colorado River, the debut album of Austin fourpiece Topaz & Mudphonic is canned Southern heat, a hooch brew of…
What, Me Ride the Bus?
The current pressing issues for Capital Metro are revealed in the 11 substantive questions submitted by the selection committee of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization to applicants for CAMPO’s vacant position on the Capital Metro board. The meaty questions delve into issues such as the transit agency’s mission, its core constituency and service area,…
Hell Ride
This grindhousey biker film, executive-produced by Quentin Tarantino, is a convoluted, overly snazzy-looking tale of bad blood between even worse people.
Playing Through
The air sex competition at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz last week featured something that should be inherent in all sporting events, serious fun
Book Review
Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind; Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet; Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages
Texas Platters
Southpaw Jones Cruelty (Freshly Picked Music) There are thousands of singer-songwriters, but only one Southpaw Jones. Cruelty, his fourth disc, finds the local raconteur again treading the fine line between urban poet and old-fashioned folkie. What stands Jones apart is his love for words and the way he uses them. Some might discredit his stretching…
Patterson Lobs Another Christmas Surprise
Public access to Christmas Mountains is still uncertain
American Teen
A princess, jock, rebel, heartthrob, and geek: It could be The Breakfast Club, but American Teen is instead a documentary that ducks the consequences of its own making.
Day Trips
Take the short trek south on I-35 to the San Antonio missions for a fun day trip
After a Fashion
Your Style Avatar deems it OK to go without the NYC scarves for the summer, and it’s hard not to remember a guy whose art is all over you
Texas Platters
Adam Ahrens Fond du Lac (Trampa) Adam Ahrens’ voice is instantly familiar, a molasses mixture of Bill Callahan and Leonard Cohen. That’s apparent within the first three songs of his sophomore CD, a more layered, exotic affair than the former Wisconsinite’s finger-picked debut. “Soldier’s Pay” tells a Cohen story under jazzy horns (courtesy of Michael…
Neighbors Protest Proposed Health Clinic
A North Central Austin clinic has neighborhoods up in arms
A Man Named Pearl
A self-taught topiary artist in South Carolina is profiled in this amiable but unadventurous documentary.
From Burnt Orange to Gold
Eighteen current or former Longhorns will represent the United States in the Beijing Olympics
The Common Law
Moving Somewhere New? Your Lease Terms Are Important.
Texas Platters
It’s a long way from Austin to Mumbai, but as DJ Avatar says, it’s all world music. Avatar’s Mas Cultura! EP blends Latin beats with the Middle East, Mission Impossible with Bollywood, and while his “Mumbai 2 Step” isn’t nearly as effective as Bay Area DJ Cheb i Sabbah, his mash-up of ney, bells, and…
McCaul Takes GOP Mantra to Gas Station
Austin congressman milking gas price issue
Man on Wire
In a guerrilla act, French wirew-alker Philippe Petit crossed the space between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. His daring and artistry continue to amaze and inspire, as demonstrated in this documentary.
News Bullets
Moment of Silence Goes to Court On Monday, state Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a brief defending a state law requiring a mandatory moment of silence at the beginning of the day in Texas schools. A case challenging the constitutionality of the law is set to go before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. In…
UT Coaches Represent in Beijing
Eighteen current or former Longhorns across five different sports will represent the United States in the Beijing Olympics, and a smattering of others will represent other nations. Is it something in the water? No, it’s something more obvious – the coaching. UT track and field coach Bubba Thornton and swimming coach Eddie Reese are the…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
David Hasselhoff a Young Snapper, ‘Hanma’ for Hummer, and more
Texas Platters
ZZ Top Eliminator (Collectors Edition) (Warner Bros./Rhino) ZZ Top Live From Texas (Eagle Rock Entertainment) Video didn’t kill the classic-rock star, but it wasn’t kind to the unpretty ones. By contrast, ZZ Top’s stylistic evolution from Nudie suits and onstage livestock to gratuitously bearded Mad Max refugees served them well as videos for “Gimme All…
Court Upholds E-Vote Machines
State Dems lose another legal round in eSlate case
Texas Platters
The Bellfuries Palmyra (Moe & Sal) Trading their rockabilly roots for a power-pop sheen, Joey Simeone and the retooled Bellfuries kick Kinks and Costello behind lilting melodies on their sophomore disc. Simeone’s pitching vocal swoons lend “Give It, Get It” and “Death of an Idol” an uneasy edge against the bouncing harmonies, and “The Only…
Austin Swimmers Look to Dominate in Beijing
Of the 22 men who will be swimming on the United States Olympic team, more than a third live in Austin and train with Longhorn Aquatics. Yes, the reigning king of the sport, Michael Phelps, does pretty well for himself swimming out of Ann Arbor, Mich. As every sentient person in America probably knows, Phelps…
Restaurant Review
Seafood lovers will find comfort in dishes from Executive Chef Lawrence Kocurek and Roy’s Classics
Texas Platters
The Devil Bat Lingers Like a Ghost (Sister Skull) Unassuming yet surprisingly potent, the Devil Bat hits like a well-crafted beer buzz at a run-down rent-house garden party. Led by guitarist/vocalist L.A. Cameron, the Austin quintet’s homespun sound contrasts elements of coffeehouse folk with triangulated psychedelic guitar, connecting the local legacy dots forward from Powell…
State GOP Fears Libertarian Upset
Republicans see the future, and it is the Libertarian Party of Texas!
Luv Doc Recommends: Second Annual Austin Ice Cream Festival
Yes, of course it’s hot. You’re in Austin. It’s August. Every day when you walk outside it feels like you’re standing in front of oven … an oven with a big steaming bowl of water in it. Even the breeze feels like a Labrador panting on the back of your neck. This is the time…
