Cover Story
Roadside Playboys and Texana Dames
The Hancock Family’s long, strange, supernatural musical journey
The Last Days of the San José
The San José was a rundown dive until filmmaker Lambert came along with dreams of renovation. For three years, Lambert struggled to get a bank loan and in the meantime became an involuntary landlord and voluntary documentarian of the intriguing personalities living in her motel.
Super Mecha Happy Fun Monkey Bash (Vol. 3)
Super Mecha Happy Fun Monkey Bash (Vol. 3) The Alamo teams up with local Japanese-pop-culture enthusiast and archivist Tony Salvaggio to present the best of bizarre Japanese video oddities. Volume 3 highlights include diaper fetish fun, tons of crazy rubber costumes, live-action Pac Man simulation, a soul kiss with a giant octopus, nonsensical musical inventions,…
Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment
Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment 1977, R, 93 min. Directed by Yukio Noda, Starring Sonny Chiba, Callan Leung. Action megastar Sonny Chiba plays a ruthless hitman who’s been wrongly framed.
Day Trips
The Outdoor Art Museum reproduces some of the most famous works of the art world on the walls of the little town of Eastland
Naked City
UT radical gets showered with love by the conservative troops
Greatest Hits
Marilyn MansonLest We Forget: The Best of Marilyn Manson (Interscope) Almost lost in the pre- and post-Columbine uproar over the former Mr. Warner is the fact that his best songs – “The Beautiful People,” “The Dope Show,” “Disposable Teens” – mirror modern rock’s craven, bloated, strung-out countenance. Good ear for covers too, of which Depeche…
Tasting the Stars
Champagne: an appreciation and primer
Austin @ Large: On Your Marks!
It’s never too early (or too late?) for a council-race pregame show
TCB
Closing out the year by considering the persistent question: Are there too many bands in Austin?
Choice Champagnes Around Town
I asked a few utterly trustworthy shop people around town two questions: What is the best bargain you have in your shop, and what will you be drinking on New Year’s Eve? Here are the answers with the stores in alphabetical order Store: Austin Wine Merchant Person to talk to: John Roegnik Bargain: Gruet Blanc…
The Hightower Report
Real men don’t drive Hummers; and, you will submit to Big Brother … um, voluntarily
Constructing the Illusion of Depth
Four of Austin’s master painters reveal the secrets of their craft
Food-o-file
What’s cooking in the Central Texas food scene.
Crew Stories
‘People will ask me if I’m a production assistant or an assistant director,’ Glen Moorman says, ‘and I always tell them, if you have a $50,000 budget, I’m your first assistant director, and, if you have a $50 million budget, I’m the last production assistant hired.’
I’d Like to Be Under the Sea
Artist Hana Hillerova explains how she grew her ‘Octopus’s Garden’
DVD Watch
At age 22, as a researcher for Granada Television, Michael Apted was charged with finding participants for a documentary project that, unbeknownst to him, would become his life’s work
The Year in Revulsion
Comic J.R. Brow charts the lows and lowers of 2004
Welcome to the Real World
Rhizome Collective brings activist ideals down to earth
DVD Watch
Decadence, perhaps inevitably, dates itself: Fellini’s much-censored ‘La Dolce Vita’ no longer shocks in its depiction of upper-class excess and listless living the way it did upon release in 1960, but it’s a gorgeous artifact, nonetheless
Culture Flash!
Geeeeet a piece of Bernadette Peters or Reba McEntire from Arts on Real
Welcome to Rhizomia
The Rhizome Collective is located at 300 Allen St. and is open for public tours Sundays at 2pm, and virtual tours at www.rhizomecollective.org. Contact at rhizomecollective@earthlink.net, or 385-3695. The tour focuses on the group’s permaculture projects, but there’s more to the Rhizome than compost and fowl. Get involved without getting your hands (too) dirty with…
TV Eye
Had your fill of frothy TV holiday fare? Weary of bowl games? Lost your buzz from all those holiday sweets? Well, then, ‘The Territory’ comes just in time.
High Tech Schools: The Future, or the Latest Fad?
Will new technology funding go to build skills or just buy stuff?
Darkness
Eurotrash horror film for the new millennium.
Readings
Lorenzo Thomas of Houston is a thinking-man’s writer. His critical studies of folklore, modernism, and music are substantial works, and in both prose and poetry he always addresses the difficult issues.
Williamson DA Puts the Squeeze on Defense Bar
John Bradley sees nothing wrong with compelling testimony about indicted clients
Beyond the Sea
More “Splish” than “Splash,” this biopic about the life of pop crooner Bobby Darin is practically a one-man Kevin Spacey show.
Readings
No. 26 in Richard Stark’s, aka Donald Westlake’s, Parker series finds the master thief taking us on a thrill ride among armored cars and badass female bounty hunters
Weed Watch
Chronic-pain specialists are just drug dealers in disguise, say federal narcs
Page Two
A tainted prayer for the new year
Weed Watch
Amazonian hallucinogen OK – for now – in religious observances
After a Fashion
WORDS OF THE WEEK “He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave.”– British essayist Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) WHO? Why on earth would anyone be interested in opening an e-mail from a sender named Repulsive G. Lodi? Or Ernestine R. Philistine? Frankly, if Mr. (Ms.?) Lodi or Ms. Philistine were folks I was…
Sucking, Spewing, and Burning LNG and the Texas Gulf
Plans for LNG terminals in the Gulf of Mexico raise major environmental questions
About AIDS
Even the op-ed page pundits are complaining this year about the overwhelming commercialism and phony sentiment of the holiday season. Yet, serving people suffering from HIV/AIDS is a daily reminder of what Christmas is supposed to be about, and we are moved always by the genuine outpouring of concern and help from the Central Texas…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
To Your Health
Can a person be allergic to cold weather?
Naked City
New Web site offers outlet for First Amendment activism
The Common Law
The National Do Not Call Registry
Naked City
The state attains EPA standards for fine particle pollution – for what it’s worth
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Malnutrition in Iraq, hot dogs in the United States, Ketu will change into Virgo, and D&D at least once a month
Naked City
APD says independent inquiry will allow for more public confidence
Luv Doc Recommends: Grupo Fantasma New Year’s Eve Party
This Friday is New Year’s Eve. If you don’t already have a pretty decent idea of where and how you plan to work your stuff, it’s time to drag yourself out of your hidey hole, Osama. There’s plenty going on. Sure, you could argue that New Year’s Eve is just an arbitrary point in the…
