Cover Story
My Semester on the Beat
Wherein our reporter pursues the bad guys, abhors Problem People, studies community policing, and earns a perfect attendance koozie in the APD’s Citizen Police Academy
Eggnog U Rall Haikus
What? Another Inauguration? Rick got elected, Now he wants to have a ball. Aw, do we have to? Reality Bites Unfortunately, The date is already set. There’s no turning back. Don’t Forget Ice This is all for Rick. We mustn’t disappoint him. Pretend to have fun. Xanax at Work Who is Rick, anyway? Just some…
Texas Country Reporter Clogs Your Arteries
The Texas Country Reporter has been at it for a while; I remember seeing his down-home dispatches covering the state ever since I was a child. Well the show isn’t resting on its laurels; they’ve got a pretty sizable YouTube presence, which is where we found this alternately alluring and terrifying video: a restaurant in…
Jennifer, We Hardly Knew Ye
Jennifer Gale moving to Dallas?
‘Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07’ for the Xbox 360
This year’s Tiger achieves EA Sports’ goals like no game before it. When I say this, however, I’m assuming that EA Sports’ ultimate goal is to destroy my marriage. In a brilliant move to trick me into playing this game with my wife, this year’s model includes more multiplayer options than ever before. In addition…
Wal-Mart Withdrawl? Fear Not.
For those of you jonesin’ for more Mart, yours truly has a run-down of the council debate last week in Beside the Point, while Katherine Gregor traces the history and future of the controversial project in Developing Stories. With Futrell recusing herself from the Wal-Mart case, due to “rumor” of a conflict of interest (some…
I Love It When a Plan Comes Together
Pound Deuce McAllister between the tackles 26 times for 136 yards. Sprint Reggie Bush around the ends for 168 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns. Allow Drew Brees to relax into an efficient passing groove. Limit one of the league’s top rushers, Frank Gore, to 40 ground yards and no touchdowns. Force an opposing quarterback into…
No Surprises in Euro Champs League
No big surprises in the finales in the European Champions League group stage. Manchester United, Arsenal, Barcelona, and Roma punched their tickets for the final 16, and there’s arguably not a single surprise team left in the field. The tourney resumes in February with knockout rounds. Full results below. So, here’s the Final 16: Top…
NCAA Finals Report
Top-ranked North Carolina won the NCAA women’s championship on Sunday, beating Notre Dame, 2-1. It’s the Tar Heels’ 18th title in the 25-year history of the sport. And here’s the scary part: This is the youngest UNC team ever. Unseeded UC-Santa Barbara won the men’s title, upsetting UCLA in the final, 2-1. It was only…
Spring Is the Cruelest Season
With all the hubbub here at Chronic HQ, we almost forgot the news. The Spring Condominiums open their sure-to-be-luxe marketing center today at 5:30pm. Be a part of the first condo wave downtown, while they’re still expensive! Press release after the jump, along with some more contemplative words on the condominium Waste Land. Spring Austin…
Responsible Growth for Northcross
In what will hopefully be the day’s last smattering of Wal-Martritude, we see that Responsible Growth for Northcross has a newly redesigned Web site, complete with a blog, a Cafe Press store, and downloads for signs, bumper-stickers and “the Top 10 Reasons Why Wal-Mart Is Wrong for Northcross.” You know, people always say Wal-Mart leeches…
Will Wynn on Wal-Mart
In Austin, sometimes it’s déjà vu all over again… Take our wild and wooly Wal-Mart quiz!!! Roll-back your thinking caps and fill in the blanks in this statement from the mayor! For extra points, name when it was made! “I am not opposed to Wal-Mart doing business in Austin. Under the right circumstances, they are…
More Than 60,000 Tickets Already Sold for Alamo Bowl
Our own Texas Longhorns (who are the defending national champs in case you may have forgotten) will face the Iowa Hawkeyes in this year’s Alamo Bowl being held in nearby San Antonio at the Alamodome on Saturday, December 30 at 3:30pm. Sixty thousand tickets have already been sold with the remaining tickets available from Eddie…
UT Hosts Volleyball Regionals
It would really be a shame to not show up for your own party. Thankfully, the Texas Longhorns avoided that possible embarrassment by whipping Prairie View A&M and Stephen F. Austin in last weekend’s NCAA volleyball playoffs – both in 3-0 decisions – to advance to this weekend’s Sweet 16 regionals, which were scheduled to…
TX-23 Race Numbers
SurveyUSA has numbers up in the Bonilla/Rodriguez brawl in congressional district 23. Title says it all: “Republican Bonilla Hangs On in TX 23rd, But Hispanic Vote May Decide Outcome.” Bonilla (R) 53 Rodriguez (D) 46 Margin of Sampling Error: ± 4.6%
More ‘Splaining
More on the Futrell/Wal-Mart Conflict of Interest
Democracy for Texas Party Tonight
Hey all, Democracy for Texas (a spinoff from the 2004 Dean for Texas campaign) will be partying with Butch Hancock tonight and fundraising. Details here.
Toby, You’ve Got Some ‘Splaining to Do!
Toby Futrell’s Wal-Mart conflict of interest
Environmental Leaders Against WTP4
Lost amidst the deluge of Wal-Mart runoff last week was a letter to City Council from several of Austin’s environmental leaders, urging them to change course on building Water Treatment Plant 4 at its proposed, environmentally sensitive location. “We ask that you remove yourself from the box the Utility has unnecessarily put the City in…
Get Out Your Hankies
Free-market booster Michael Quinn Sullivan, the voice behind the voice of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, is leaving his VP post to lead a new organization with a similar low-to-no taxes mindset. The startup, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, seeks to divert the state’s $15 billion surplus into the hands of taxpayers, and has created a…
Horns Having Success in the NFL
Yes, Longhorn fans, it’s cringe-worthy indeed to see the very same Oklahoma Sooners that your team so soundly thrashed this year waltz into a BCS bowl game against mighty mighty Boise State. Can we only dream of a potato-lover’s upset? Take heart. In the back of his mind, Bob Stoops, when not obsessing over the…
The Moustache Ride Is Over
John Bolton leaves UN post
Dems Saddle Up for Ciro
DCCC Does Ad-Buy for Ciro Rodriguez
Where to Wal-Mart?
Does Wal-Mart make more sense on the freeway ?
Nudge 3.5
Nudge 3.5 Directed by Various. These semi-annual end-of-the-semester screenings present students’ work for public consumption. The feature Fall to Grace by former Austin FilmWorks student Mari Marchbanks will open each show. The Wednesday show also includes the shorts, “Adventure Story” and “Bride Monster” by Vicky Boone. The Thursday show from the advanced cinematography and editing…
Silent Night, Deadly Night
Silent Night, Deadly Night 1984, R, 82 min. Directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr., Starring Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Linnea Quigley. Little Billy witnessed his parents getting killed by Santa after being warned by his senile grandpa that Santa punishes those who are naughty. Now Billy is 18, and out…
‘Friday Night Lights’: Hangover Edition
Your faithful correspondent has a crushing hangover and is late for the Fun Fun Fun festivities in Waterloo Park, so let’s get to it. In 5A Division I, Westlake is battling Los Fresnos in Victoria as we speak. Central Texas’ other 5A cardiac kids, Round Rock (Division I) and San Marcos (Division II), soldier on…
No Knock and No Crack
The FBI has begun an inquiry into the police shooting death of 88-year-old Kathryn Johnston, who was killed in her Atlanta-area home during a questionable drug raid last week. Reportedly, Atlanta narco squad cops busted into Johnston’s small home armed with a so-called no-knock warrant, allowing them to forgo announcing their presence before busting down…
District 23 Run-Off Date Challenged
The Associated Press reports that the Dec. 12 date set for the Congressional District 23 runoff is being challenged by Latino groups because it coincides with the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a major religious holiday for Latinos. According to the story, Texas is simultaneously asking the U.S. Justice Department to approve the date…
Soccer Watch
NCAA College Cups and more
Rock & Roll Books
Big Boss Man: The Life & Music of Bluesman Jimmy Reedby Will Romano Backbeat, 360 pp., $17.95 (paper) Fifty-one was a helluva age to go considering the tremendous influence Jimmy Reed’s simple, solid blues had on modern music. Big Boss Man shadows the Mississippi-born guitarist’s life through the recording and drinking years and medical and…
Rock & Roll Books
Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grandby James Barron Times, 280 pp., $24 James Barron’s Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand joins Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary and Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb in…
Shining Light on Campus Discrimination
New UT Queer Student’s Alliance report says administration hasn’t done enough to discourage homophobic behavior
Film News
Last thoughts on Altman, courtesy of collaborator Stephen Harrigan; plus, incentives and local interest
TCB
Fun Fun Fun Fest brings punk and indie to Waterloo Park, Dixie Chicks return defiant as ever, and Mayor Will Wynn smacks down the playa-hating New York Times. Even The Onion couldn’t make this up.
To Your Health
With sadness we report that columnist and nutritionist James Heffley passed away on Sunday, Nov. 26, at the age of 65.
Rock & Roll Books
U2 by U2by Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr. Harper Collins, 353 pp., $39.95 As big as the band itself, U2 by U2 is so massive it can hardly be done justice in a short-form review. So here’s “In the Name of Love,” a midpoint chapter whose oral history traces the genesis of…
Rock & Roll Books
The Dawn of Indian Music in the Westby Peter Lavezzoli Continuum, 456 pp., $39.95 Deep into his well-informed but only sporadically entertaining tome on the influence of Indian music on Western musicians, Peter Lavezzoli quotes Indian-born poet and colonial apologist Rudyard Kipling. “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall…
DVD Watch
His popular (and populist) short stories pretty much invited adaptations, a calculated risk that 20th Century Fox decided to gamble on in 1952
The Common Law
What happens if I don’t show up for jury duty?
Rock & Roll Books
Skydog: The Duane Allman Storyby Randy Poe Backbeat, 320 pp., $24.95 Astounding as it may seem, it’s taken 35 years for someone to write the definitive story of Duane Allman. One of rock’s most enduring and influential guitarists, Allman died at 24 in 1971, just as the band he had formed with his brother Gregg…
Former ACTV Head Gets Seven Years
John Villarreal sentenced to seven years in jail for embezzling from the public access station
TV Eye
Xmas-Rated?
Finding Hope … in Bed!
Tim Miller’s latest trip to Austin finds the noted performance artist optimistic about being gay
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
The state of oil and doggie doppelg�ngers
Rock & Roll Books
The Story of AC/DC: Let There Be Rockby Susan Masino Omnibus Press, 244 pp., $22.95 With the noted exception of Chuck Berry, who transfixed Angus Young into his eternal “School Days,” AC/DC defines rock in a way mostly unattainable throughout music history. As such, the story of the Aussies is the music itself: the sexual…
It’s the Carbon, Stupid!
Texas leaders continue to drag their boot heels on global warming
Point Austin: Invisible No More
Houston janitors strike a mighty blow for the value and dignity of labor
Ready to Fight
A chat with Negative Approach’s John Brannon
Dan Dietz: Breath in Denver
A smoking ban extended to theatres threatens to suck the air out of a Denver production of Austinite Dan Dietz’s play tempOdyssey, but where there’s a will …
Oops!
Our latest batch
Rock & Roll Books
Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Loveby Courtney Love Faber & Faber, 285 pp., $35 Courtney Love has become famous for the circus that surrounds her – the assaults, overdoses, plastic surgeries, and famous dead spouses. Dirty Blonde, said to be pieces of her life up until 2001 (and, naturally, a teaser for her upcoming…
Coal’s Body Count
At least 240 premature deaths per year – roughly 12,000 over the next 50 years – will be caused by toxic pollution from the 19 coal-fired power plants proposed for construction statewide, according to a report released last week. Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office, which commissioned the report along with the…
Beside The Point
Slow week at City Council … try to stay awake
School Days
Our class met on Tuesdays from 5:30-9:30pm at the downtown police headquarters on Eighth Street. We’d generally hear two presentations per week from speakers representing various departments within APD. Topics covered everything from use-of-force to forensic science to the bomb squad. Some highlights:Recruitment & Training: White-collar pastel blues Austin Police Academy instructor Sgt. Fred Fletcher…
Austin Symphony: Meeting the orchestra the first time
The Austin Symphony gets in touch with our inner child through a concert featuring some of the classical music that most people first heard when they were young
Asia Cafe
The best and most authentic Chinese in town?
Rock & Roll Books
Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies by Josh Frank and Caryn Ganz St. Martin’s Griffin, 316 pp., $14.95 (paper) Gary Smith, who recorded the Pixies’ first official session at Massachusetts’ Fort Apache Studios in 1987, describes the quartet’s bizarre appeal this way: “They seemed like regular, normal people, and yet…
Frank ‘The Fetus’ Strikes Again
Seemingly undaunted by his failure to push through legislation in 2005 that sought to protect pharmacists of conscience from having to fill scrips for emergency contraceptives, Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, gears up his 2007 this-is-where-life-begins agenda
The Hightower Report
Neil Bush Milks Cows; and Responding to Labor
365 Days/365 Plays: Weeks 3/4
The yearlong festival of plays by Suzan-Lori Parks continues with seven short plays presented at the Blanton Museum in Week Three and seven more by Different Stages in Week Four
The Belmont
Going beyond the interior design and clientele
Rock & Roll Books
The Show I’ll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experienceedited by Sean Manning De Capo Press, 359 pp., $16.95 (paper) Incorporating luminaries such as Ishmael Reed, Thurston Moore, and Harvey Pekar, a collection of 50 writers recounting their most memorable concert-going experiences should provide a more compelling read. Despite reports from the…
Deck the Halls
It’s like Neighbors, except with more Christmas lights and Danny DeVito.
Re: Gift
When a PS3 just isn’t in the cards
Ballet East: An expression of Hope
Ballet East hasn’t changed its name to Alvin Ailey West, but with a fourth choreographer from the prominent dance troupe having set work on the Austin company, it could
Asia Market
Get ready to spend some time and money
Rock & Roll Books
Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogreby Cass Browne and Gorillaz Riverhead, 298 pp., $35 Bigger than Jesus (when laid end-to-end), more popular than the Beatles (among members of the key 12- to 15-year-old Malaysian male demographic), and infinitely cooler than Tank Blur, Grammy-winning virtual superstars Gorillaz bare all beneath the microscope’s monkey trials and two-dimensional popstars…
Polygamous Prophet Update
Court hears testimony of alleged victim of “spiritual marriage” arranged and presided over by Warren Jeffs
Re: Gift
Gears of WarMicrosoft $59.99 Cliff Bleszinski, lead designer for Gears of War, stated that his influence for making this game realistic was his personal experience playing paintball. So the question is, did the experience pay off? All the hype that’s been churning about GOW’s graphics is essentially true. Not only are the characters finely detailed…
Review: UT Department of Theatre & Dance’s The Way of the World
Despite the script’s dizzying mishmash of complications, student production transports you to another time and place
Revisiting the ‘Land of Plenty’
Fuchsia Dunlop’s Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking
Rock & Roll Books
I Was There When It Happened: My Life With Johnny Cashby Marshall Grant with Chris Zar Cumberland House, 358 pp., $24.95 Marshall Grant played bass in Johnny Cash’s Tennessee Two for nearly 30 years, during which time he bore witness to the rise of one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century and to…
F*ck
Like the very word this documentary examines, F*ck can be found all over the place.
Re: Gift
Splinter Cell: Double Agent Ubisoft $59.99 You’re an undercover agent, deep classified shit. The terrorist organization you’re working for wants you to execute an innocent man. Do you: a) gain the organization’s trust but lose your agency rep by putting one in his ear or b) pretend to miss, showing you’re willing to deep-six a…
Review: Different Stages’ Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge
Christopher Durang’s holiday spoof is a kamikaze hayride into a merry miscellany of Christmas entertainments
Food-o-File
Getting whiskful about Carmelo’s 21st birthday
Rock & Roll Books
Fire in the Water, Earth in the Air: Legends of West Texas Musicby Christopher J. Oglesby University of Texas Press, 287 pp., $22.95 (paper) Lubbock’s Buddy Holly Walk of Fame is strictly for tourists. I lived there 23 years and never visited. For years, I thought Holly was a thick, black glasses pioneer and Waylon…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “I think his goal is to try to confuse folks about what emergency contraceptives are and aren’t. This is an ideological definition of what [emergency contraception] is, that is not backed by science or by the FDA.”– Sarah Wheat of Austin Planned Parenthood, on GOP legislator Frank Corte’s bill to define…
Re: Gift
Final Fantasy XIISquare Enix $49.99 Sixteen hours, 13 minutes, and 27 seconds later, and there’s no sign this is going to end soon. The depressingly precise clock, arguably the worst development in the Final Fantasy franchise, ticking away perfectly good game time. But then again, what are a few days when war looms on the…
Review: Testsite 06.5: I Want to See My Skirt
Inspired by 1960s images of a Nigerian girl, filmmaker Cauleen Smith and poet A. Van Jordan create a beautiful Testsite collaboration that imagines her journey to womanhood but also reveals how we see ourselves
Event Menu
Oh, holy crap, the holidays are here!
Rock & Roll Books
Darker Than the Deepest Sea: the Search for Nick Drakeby Trevor Dann Da Capo Press, 288 pp., $16.95 (paper) Most Americans of a certain generation were introduced to Nick Drake in 2000 via a Volkswagen commercial featuring the song “Pink Moon,” but it’s probably safe to say that few of them then extended their interest…
Dreamland
This ensemble piece set in a rural mobile-home park has a solid emotional center despite some dramatic mood swings.
Re: Gift
Marvel Ultimate AllianceActivision $39.99 The rising destructive capability of evil men threatens global stability. And so, you must take control of a team of Marvel superheroes and form the world’s mightiest counter-terrorism unit! But you won’t find Spider-Man turning his sarcastic wit against the likes of Osama bin Laden or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Marvel Ultimate…
Readings
Plotted and paced like a thriller, Thunderstruck successfully weaves the concurrent stories of Hawley Harvey Crippen, his wife Belle Elmore, and Guglielmo Marconi into a fascinating view of early 20th-century life
D-League Dreams
All roads lead to Toros training camp
Rock & Roll Books
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin Dutton, 314 pp., $24.95 As a musician-turned-neuroscientist, McGill University professor Daniel Levitin is in a unique position to tackle questions about what constitutes music, what role music plays in various aspects of the human condition, and why it cannot…
The Nativity Story
Sadly, this familiar tale is presented with a yawn-inducing neutrality more reminiscent of a community-center Christmas pageant than an epic story of divine humanity.
Re: Gift
WTF: Work Time FunD3 Publisher $29.99 PSP’s new WTF boasts a simple premise: It’s a collection of simple little jobs, most of which look and play like old Atari games. Upon completion of each simple little job, you earn money, which you then use to buy access to more simple little jobs. Chopping wood, crossing…
Readings
Emily Schultz seems more committed to delineating the boundaries of “Michael Moore” the persona rather than Michael Moore the person
Keep on Growing
Derek’s main Domino Bobby Whitlock settles in his legend in Austin
Rock & Roll Books
America’s Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alleyby Philip Furia and Michael Lasser Routledge, 328 pp., $29.95 As integral to the identity of 20th-century America as Prohibition, the Cold War, or the New York Yankees, the songs of Tin Pan Alley are the closest things we have to a…
Turistas
Turistas is a surprisingly effective horror film with good acting and some breathless action.
Re: Gift
BullyRockstar Games $39.99 In this latest Rockstar “free form” game for PS2, you are young Jimmy Hopkins, sent to Bullworth Academy by an unpleasant mother and arrogant stepfather. Before you have time to contemplate this, you’re knee-deep in scheduled English, chemistry, art, shop, and gym classes. As the misfit of the academy you’ll be the…
Page Two: Selling Short in the Marketplace of Ideas
“Consequences” wrought in the pursuit of silencing speech should be of deep concern to all
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek & the Dominos
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek & the Dominosby Jan Reid Rodale, 174 pp., $16.95 “Every young man has a Layla in his life,” writes Jan Reid, “or failing that, in his imagination.” That Eric Clapton’s was the wife of his best friend George Harrison, about whom the Beatle wrote “Something,” forced God’s…
Rock & Roll Books
Motown in Love: Lyrics From the Golden Era edited by Herb Jordan Pantheon, 196 pp., $23 At the dawn of the rock-book era, 1970, stood Richard Goldstein’s The Poetry of Rock. Light on text but varied in its songs, the book’s brilliance was simple: Rock lyrics are an awkward extension of traditional poetry. That year…
Austin-SA Commuter Rail: Kyle looking on board
City of Kyle likely to be among first jurisdictions to support Austin-San Antonio commuter rail proposal
Re: Gift
Flushed AwayD3 Publisher $29.99 The Nintendo DS rendition of Flushed Away is, along with the majority of often quickly produced movie-based titles, a side-scrolling platform game. You assume the role of Roddy and Rita, exploring an underground metropolis while trying to avoid the evil Toad and his henchrats. Most of the game is very routine…
After a Fashion
While the rest of us were battling holiday crowds, your Style Avatar was whooping it up in Buda … at Wal-Mart
Second Coming
Tia Carrera’s Jason Morales takes out the Lysol and sprays down the Melvins
Rock & Roll Books
The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Musicby Dunstan Prial Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 347 pp., $27 In the final lines of Dunstan Prial’s zippy, ultimately astute biography of the 20th century’s most prescient music talent scout, the author ascribes the crusading Vanderbuilt scion a singular place in American civil rights history. By…
Heading South
North American women of a certain age, who are sex tourists at a Haitian resort in the late Seventies, provide grist for this French film’s study of social and economic contrasts.
Re: Gift
Lego Star Wars II: The Original TrilogyLucas Arts $49.95 At first glance, Lego Star Wars II seems to be marketing to an odd audience. Sure it’s the perfect game for Star Wars freaks to play with their nerdlings, but how many of us dudes in Boba Fett Underoos have actually had the chance to procreate?…
Day Trips
Mandola Estate Winery pairs handmade Italian-style wines with a Texas accent to an Old World-style Italian market and restaurant
Rock & Roll Books
Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation by Marc Fisher Random House, 400 pp., $27.95 Though it reads for stretches like a particularly well-cited eulogy, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher refuses to pronounce his true love dead in Something in the Air, choosing instead to offer other, often pat,…
Fam-Planning Uproar
Array of organizations signs on to letter urging Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt to reconsider appointment of pro-life, anti-contraceptive doctor to be deputy assistant secretary for population affairs
Crew Stories
Tommy Sturgis
Luv Doc Recommends: John Aielli’s Capitol Tree Lighting & Holiday Sing-Along
Spending the holidays broke and homeless was good enough for Jesus, but here in America that dog won’t hunt. We have an economy to think about. We have an $8.6 trillion deficit. We can’t spend the holiday season staggering around, wassailing, singing carols, and swapping spit under the mistletoe. December was meant to be spent…
