Benefits
FRI 16 Speech Artist Michael Steinrueck will perform to benefit the Austin Eurythmy Ensemble, at Quackenbush’s Cafe, 2120 Guadalupe, 7:30pm. Cost is $7. 454-TIXS. SAT 17 Muses Workshop & Live Music Show to benefit Children’s Rights Coalition and the Jaroschy Children’s Trust Fund, at Scottish Rite Temple, 207 W. 18th, 2pm, 7-11pm. Cost is $10…
God’s Steward at the TNRCC
photograph by Alan Pogue There are two Barry McBees. One is a born-again Christian, a ram-rod straight barrister who is not afraid to let others know his views on the Gospels and his personal charge to “do justice” and to “love and fulfill mercy.” The other is a party man, a Republican party man –…
Coach’s Corner
Clinging to an idyllic spot in southwestern North America, sitting astride the last few yards of the American continent, lays the fine city of San Diego, California, site of Super Bowl XXXII. San Diego, just north of Tijuana on the Baja coast, is the California generations of Americans flocked west for. Built around picture card…
Standard Deception
Our Lubbock neighborhood was recently baptized by fire in TNRCC policies and procedures, when a local shutter company, O’Hair Shutters, began seeking a permit to incinerate — without emission controls — huge amounts of wood waste and glue next to our homes and a neighborhood elementary school. We na�vely assumed that the TNRCC mission statement…
Day Trips
Rains County Eagle Fest in Emory celebrates the migration of the American Bald Eagle to Texas, Jan. 16-17. 903/473-2901. Gem and Mineral Show brings displays and demonstrations to Lady Bird Johnson Park south of Fredericksburg, Jan. 17-18. 830/997-6187. Old Gruene Market Days in the historic district north of New Braunfels happens Jan. 17-18. 210/629-6441. Coming…
No Response
In the spring of 1995, a legal notice of a permit application, asking for public comment, was published in Houston. McDonough Marine was planning a Houston Ship Channel facility to sand-blast and spray-paint barges used in the refining, chemical, and petrochemical industries. Houston is a federal non-attainment area for ozone, requiring rigorous permitting standards, and…
Page Two
We’re into 1998 now, riding a new year. Tasting and smelling to see if there will be any change, or just more of the same; it’s startling to realize how young the year is, and how deep into it we are already. Here’s another issue. Enjoy it. The season of planning for SXSW is on…
Texas Rights Under Siege
Basic rights that most Texans had come to take for granted have been under siege by the current TNRCC administration. Relying on vague language in a 1995 state law sponsored by Senator Teel Bivins (R-Amarillo), the commissioners have been denying hundreds of citizen requests for hearings on environmental permit applications. Prior to 1995, such hearing…
Public Notice
Blame it on El Ni�a! Oh! That cross-dressing, gender-skewing bag of hot wind, wreaking havoc and turmoil on love lives and lust levels wherever she lights! No wonder all these women are going nuts! The force is too great! They must converge! They must meet! They must dance! It’s only natural! It’s best to heed…
Top Ten List Of TNRCC Excuses
“Complaining to Barry McBee’s Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission does no good, so why bother to call the agency?” So I have been told again and again by citizens across the state — Texas taxpayers who have given up on the TNRCC’s obligation to protect them from health hazards caused by dozens of industrial plants…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
Porky Pig lives at 123 Elm. A rabbit is not the same as a hare. A hare has proportionately longer legs than a rabbit. A bunny, however, is a rabbit. Clara Peller (of Wendy’s Hamburgers commercial fame) first said “Where’s The Beef” on January 10, 1984. The streets of lower Manhattan are paved with “Belgian…
Folding with Aces
When Alert Citizens for Environmental Safety (ACES, now known as ACES/Hudspeth Directive for Conservation) was granted “party status” in the TNRCC hearings to review the license application for a low-level nuclear waste dump in Sierra Blanca, we received the news with skepticism. Only recently in West Texas had we witnessed the TNRCC’s devotion to the…
Island Getaway
Calabash Cafe photograph byJohn Anderson Calabash Cafe 2015 Manor Rd., 478-4857 Mon, 11am-3pm; Tue-Thu, 11am-10pm; Fri & Sat, 11am-11pm What would you do if you found yourself resettled in a foreign country without ready access to your native cuisine? Suffer in silence, try to dine regularly in the homes of similarly displaced countrymen, or open…
Not Your Same Old News
photograph by Jana Birchum Occasionally, an organization runs off someone who seemed integral to its success, and it just makes you scratch your head in wonderment. The Dallas Cowboys drove Jimmy Johnson away. Apple threw out Steve Jobs. In the case of the Austin American-Statesman, Latino affairs reporter James Garcia was one of the few…
Food-O-File
On my recent trips down Manor Road to check out Calabash Cafe, I noticed a very diverse group of eateries popping up in older homes and commercial buildings along that East Austin thoroughfare, forming another “restaurant row.” As you head east, the first stop would be Manor Road Coffee House/Roscoe’s Italian Kitchen at Manor Road…
Naked City
From an urban design perspective, the proposed site plan for the Triangle property in Central Austin will require considerable changes before it can qualify as a true amenity to the surrounding neighborhoods. That’s the word from the team of designers, planners, retail consultants, and transportation experts who were in Austin late last year to lead…
Dancing About Architecture
There hasn’t been much freezing in the local weather of late, but that doesn’t mean ice cubes haven’t been forming. Or at least rapper Ice Cube has apparently formed an interest in Austin. A rep for the Cube called to express interest in having Ice perform at a local, er, gentlemen’s bar at some point…
Tales of Austin Stories
House Party! Austin Stories cast members Howard Kerner, Laura House and Brad Pope, Wednesdays 9:30pm on MTV Say It Ain’t So, Part 2: Well, that was one sure way to get a response about Austin Stories, printing a flagrant rumor. No response from MTV, of course, and AS producer George Sledge phoned to say that…
Articulations
For the past week and a half, the New York City performance art cafe Here seemed more like it was here — as in Austin, Texas — than in good old Gotham. That’s because three of the projects in this year’s Culture mart, the arts center’s annual winter festival of alternative performance, featured a trio…
Live Shots
Reckless Kelly at the Continental Club, January 11 photograph by John Carrico WILL TAYLOR & THE JAZZ MENAGERIE Caucus Club, January 6 On a cold, wet, miserable Tuesday, while piano music emanating from a speaker in a tree of the Caucus Club’s upper deck battled a funky wah-wah guitar rising up from a radio in…
Scanlines
D: Marek Kanievska (1987) with Jami Gertz, Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey, Jr., James Spader Bright Lights, Big City D: James Bridges (1988) with Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland, Phoebe Cates, Dianne Wiest, Swoosie Kurtz River’s Edge D: Tim Hunter (1986) with Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck, Dennis Hopper The ghost of things…
Exhibitionism
THE BALD SOPRANO: TREATS BUT NO WIGGLE The Public Domain, through January 31 Running Time: 2 hrs Think of the lovely Jell-O mold, a glistening mass full of tempting chunks of primary-colored fruit, quivering beneath your fork, waiting for you to plunge into its luscious center. Now think of the same Jell-O mold with cut-glass…
Recommended
Friday: Bow Wow Wow, Wannabes, Prima Donnas, Electric Lounge; Alejandro Escovedo, Cactus Cafe; Ronnie Dawson, Continental Club Saturday: Fred Sanders, Doc Powell, Borders; Pamela Hart, Elephant Room Sunday: Crystal River Jazz Band, Donn’s Depot Monday: Ted Roddy’s Tearjoint Troubadours, Ego’s Tuesday: Debra Peters, Broken Spoke Wednesday: Colin Boyd, Cactus Cafe Thursday: Wayne Hancock, Stubb’s
Short Cuts
Oh, that Quentin Tarantino. It seems he returns to Austin as frequently as those undead ghouls in the Titty Twister return to life. The comparisons, of course, stop right there. You see, all his visits here are coupled with charitable activities — fundraising events for pal Richard Linklater’s beloved Austin Film Society. In case you…
Character Generator
Tom Parker as Nat Moyer in I’m Not Rappaport photograph by John Anderson According to Tom Parker, the greatest compliment that he ever received came from a couple who told him that they had seen him work numerous times and just wanted to know two things: How old was he really, and what did he…
Road Shows
JANUARY FRI 16 The Jesus Lizard, Emo’s FRI 16 The Drifters, Top of the Marc FRI 16 Bow Wow Wow, Electric Lounge FRI 16 Ronnie Dawson, Kim Lentz & Her Jaguars, Continental Club FRI 16 Little Joe, Rocky y la Familia, La Zona Rosa FRI 16 Cadillac Voodoo Choir, Saxon Pub FRI 16 Fuzzy Sprouts,…
Start Your Modems!
Ain’t It Cool News NIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was completed in l946. This Paleozoic-era device weighed 30 tons and used 17, 400 vacuum tubes. By the early Fifties, it was declared obsolete and languished in a Quonset hut until recently. Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania recently completed a project that put all…
The Many Faces of Tom Parker, 1978-98
Parker as Haskell Harelik in The Immigrant Nat Moyer I’m Not Rappaport `98, `89 Harry A Delicate Balance `97 Martin Vanderhof You Can’t Take It With You `97 Old Fezziwig A Christmas Carol `96, `95 Malvolio Twelfth Night `96 Harry S. Truman The Dead Presidents’ Club `96 Rev. Chasuble The Importance of Being Earnest `96…
Reality Check
by Christopher Gray photograph by Todd V. Wolfson A few weeks ago, Robert Hughes, the Australian-born art critic who contributes essays to TIME and documentaries to the BBC, said on 60 Minutes that television was the number one purveyor of reality in the Western World (or something like that). Mostly that means people who can…
Women of the Cloth
Rev. Sue Enoch, associate pastor of education and administration at Highland Park Baptist Church in West Austin photograph by Kenny Braun In fourth grade, I got to do something that no other girl in my school had ever done before. I got to be an altar girl. It was a Catholic parochial school, and we…
Postscripts
The African Literature Association’s 1998 conference, “Multiculturalism and Hybridity in African Literatures,” will take place March 25-29 with some 325 participating scholars, 75 of them foreign. It’s the 24th conference for the Association, which was founded at UT in 1975 with the presence of no less than Chinua Achebe, who will be back this year…
The Space Program
photograph by Marlene Hanlin As the days of 1997 drew to a chilly end, the scientists and engineers at NASA in Houston were finishing up work on a project to be realized early in 1998. Their goal was a feat that would appear to some as yet another great leap for mankind, and to others…
Sixteen Deluxe
Emits Showers of Sparks (Warner Bros.) Imagine a sparkler, stuck in the cool sand of a beach. It flares upon lighting, and in the darkness, under a sky spilling forth with stars, its phosphorus burns white — all eyes on the showering sparks. Lasts maybe a minute. Someone lights another, and another, until the little…
Geisha and Other Books of 1997
Film rights for Arthur Golden’s first novel, Memoirs of a Geisha (Knopf, $25 hard), have just been bought by Columbia Pictures, but for God’s sake, don’t wait for the movie. This is one bestseller that delivers the shamelessly simple satisfactions of commercial fiction without the lackluster writing and careless editing that make so many popular…
Governor Deadbeat
illustration by Doug Potter Gov. George W. Bush and the other owners of the Texas Rangers are deadbeats. Rich deadbeats, but deadbeats nevertheless. Last week, Bush and his partners hit what can only be described as a towering home run by selling the Texas Rangers to Thomas Hicks for $250 million. Bush, in particular, made…
ST-37
Spaceage (Black Widow) This ought to squeegee off your third eye quite nicely if that’s the medicine you’re shopping for. ST-37’s latest is a disturbingly lilting morass of psyched-out drone on drone that’s liable to give you a contact high if you sit too close to the speakers. They may wear their influences on their…
HIV Wellness Center to Host Holistic Health Fair Jan. 17
The HIV Wellness Center, Austin’s focal point for “alternative” therapies for HIV-positive people, is offering an opportunity to sample a wide variety of holistic health care services this Saturday, January 17. This free event is to demonstrate the health advantages of HWC’s extensive programs and encourage all persons living with HIV to do everything they…
It Ain’t Over Yet
illustration by Doug Potter The courtroom scene on December 30 before a three-judge panel headed by federal District Judge Sam Sparks left tongues wagging at city hall for days. Gary Bradley, developer of the Circle C Ranch, was clearly seen whispering into the ear of Jose Garza, the attorney representing a group of minority plaintiffs…
