Cover Story
The Death of Ben Brownlee
A Rockdale teenager’s suicide raises questions about official protections for gay and transgendered kids
Jalla! Jalla!
Jalla! Jalla! 2000, NR, 88 min. Directed by Josef Fares, Starring Fares Fares, Torkel Petersson, Tuva Novotny, Laleh Pourkarim. A popular movie in its native Sweden, Jalla! Jalla! tells the story of a young man, a son of Lebanese parents, who is happy with his groundskeeping job, his Swedish girlfriend, and his best friend who…
The Other Side
Dues paid, Trish Murphy delivers her most mature album with ‘Girls Get in Free’
Wheat, Chaff Intact in Sheriff’s Race
The seven candidates to replace Margo Frasier show few differences at forum
Down and Dirty
Pasty people vs. pretty people, low budget vs. big budget, Peter Biskind vs. Robert Redford: the 20th annual Sundance!
News/Print
People in the news
Brother in Arms
As one of Austin’s most talented popsmiths and drummers, whether behind the kit or at center stage, Darin Murphy usually finds himself wanting to be in the other spot. “It’s weird, because when I’m back behind the drums, a lot of times I want to be up front,” he says. “Sometimes when I’m out front,…
Naked City
HeadlinesQuote of the Week: “It’s not the first time I’ve ever eaten my words.” – Statesman editorialist Arnold Garcia, acknowledging his published lectures on e-mail etiquette were premature in light of his “incredible lapse in judgment” in the Temple-Inland debacle. See “Reading Arnold’s e-mail.” Garcia’s e-mail woes offered comic relief as Temple-Inland abandoned its quest…
Snow Days
Austin filmmakers return from the dances Sun and Slam
Page Two
The anti-safe-and-legal abortion movement is about control, not life
Resident Alien
Shane Bartell is finally ready to say. Just don’t say he’s a ‘singer-songwriter.’
Naked City
The Statesman’s editorial page editor eats his words
Sailor Scout and the Chaperone
A father prepares for Ushicon 3, the Austin animé convention
After a Fashion
Our Style Avatar arches his well-coifed eyebrow at local eyebrows, wonders why Britney can get drunk and married and he can’t, and solicits … errrrrrr … polls local teens
Frame of ‘Reference’
“You’re not going to like this, man.” Shane Bartell nevertheless slipped me a copy of his debut EP Reference at a Centro-matic show in the spring of 2002 at the Mercury, just after we’d clicked over a mutual love for the Outfield. He knew through the Chronicle of my fondness for space rock and experimental…
Naked City
Travis Co.’s three House Democrats eagerly endorse Rep. Doggett
Short Cuts
Have you been nominated for anything this awards season?
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
The Alamo address, an angry Anglo, and anal a-bombs
Shane Bartell reviewed
Shane BartellToo Soon to Say (Lilywhite) “Days go by, until someone says it’s over.” Never one to readily admit defeat, on his first full-length CD, Too Soon to Say, Shane Bartell is so nonchalant he’s practically unaffected. Despite every effort to the contrary, he’s long past the point of good intentions. Assisted by Marcus Rice,…
Naked City
The board adopts a new “compromise” principal-selection process
TV Eye
Belinda Acosta mourns the passing of Bob Keeshan, the man with mutton chops who made her life matter when she thought it mattered least
To Your Health
I need some ammunition to convince my husband to stop smoking. Recently he has been talking about quitting, but hasn’t yet. Also, in case he continues to smoke, are there nutrients that are protective?
Second Helpings
“Second Helpings” is compiled from new and previous reviews, guides, and poll results. This week’s entries were updated by Erin Mosow. For more on Austin eateries, check here. Kenichi 419 Colorado, 320-8883 Sunday-Wednesday, 5:30-10pm; Thursday-Saturday, 5:30-11pm We have to appreciate a sushi restaurant that offers freshly ground wasabi root, more than 20 different types of…
Phases and Stages
The Flatlanders Wheels of Fortune (New West) Maybe this Flatlanders thing is gonna work out after all. Wheels of Fortune, the second album in two years from Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock, doesn’t just pick up where their 2002 New West debut left off. It positively steamrolls it. Now Again was a…
Naked City
In Austin, the national park’s manager paints a dire picture
Are We on the Edge?
Getting the answers to timely and timeless questions at the 2004 FronteraFest Long Fringe
TCB
The Cactus Cafe turns 25
Phases and Stages
Mike Kindred With Dexter WalkerHandstand (Loud House) Whenever Mike Kindred introduces himself, he need only let his fingers do the talking. The estimable local keyboard player and songwriter has played professionally since his teens in Dallas, but in the Seventies, he wrote a little tune called “Cold Shot” that became one of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s…
Naked City
The Texas death train rolls again, using chemicals deemed too cruel for dogs
Are We on the Edge?
Tongue and Groove Theatre’s silly How to Belly-Dance for Your Husband Starring Little Egypt starts off delightfully enough but winds up as a handful of sesame-flavored cotton candy
Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation 2004
The boys are back for their annual ’toon fest, highlighting the best of the rude and lewd.
About AIDS
Law closing in on serostim abuse
Phases and Stages
South Dallas All StarsLive at the South Dallas Pop Festival, 1970 (Now-Again) Few Texans are aware of the vibrant funk scene that sprang up here in the late Sixties wake of James Brown. If not for the tenacity of funk enthusiasts like producer Eothen “Egon” Alapatt, nut-tight troupes like the Apollo Commanders, the Soul Seven,…
Naked City
Bush pumps for drug testing, while the “noncontroversial” ads blare on
Are We on the Edge?
Two solo shows of Gemma Wilcox show the artist’s imaginative approach to theatricality, a rich sensitivity to character, and a winning sense of humor
The Big Bounce
There’s very little bounce in this new Elmore Leanard adaptation that stars Owen Wilson and Morgan Freeman.
The Common Law
Personal Finances � Should I consider personal bankruptcy?
Phases and Stages
Shelley KingRockin’ the Dancehall (Lemonade) With a proverbial trunk full of instant hits and yet-unheard classics, Shelley King could’ve taken the studio route for her third CD. Best known for her full-throttle vocals and a string of tunes made famous by Toni Price (“Tennessee Whiskey,” “Who Needs Tears,” “Call of My Heart”), King takes center…
Naked City
The DA catches heat from Jessie Owens’ mother and from the NAACP
Are We on the Edge?
In The Bateman Trilogy, about a family of working-class suburbanite Texans, Ken Webster reveals a fine playwright’s voice to go along with his strong directorial style
The Perfect Score
The movie that gives new meaning to the phrase, “taking the SATs”: felonious breaking and entering.
Daytrips
The lasting legacy of Sam Rayburn
Phases and Stages
Matt Hubbard If you’ve seen Jane Bond or Kimmie Rhodes perform in the past couple of years, they were probably sharing the stage with Matt Hubbard. He’s also worked with the likes of Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Emmylou Harris, and Ray Benson in the studio as producer, engineer, and/or backing musician. Now the keyboard, harp,…
Naked City
No charges pending against the insurer and its best friend in the Lege
Are We on the Edge?
In the choreographic sampler Dance Carousel 2004, 10 local dance makers show how much dance they can create in a mere 60 seconds apiece
The Company
Robert Altman sidles up to Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet and finds lots of glorious footwork but missteps when it comes to storytelling.
Soccer Watch
Surprising that this didn’t become a campaign issue in the primary, but Dem front-runner John Kerry was a notorious right-winger during his high school days in New Hampshire, and at Yale. In fact, the 1966 grad scored three goals from that position in his final game against archrival Harvard. Elsewhere: Brazil won’t be at this…
Phases and Stages
Celtic 101 On the heels of last fall’s seventh and most successful Celtic Festival comes a bounty of recordings to help pass the time until the next one. Though festival showstoppers the fabulous Killdares don’t have current product, Houston’s the Rogues have a double CD, Made in Texas, that captures them tearing it up at…
Naked City
The SOS Alliance files a federal court challenge against the EPA
Are We on the Edge?
The Austin Shakespeare Festival’s Will Power: The Course of Love, a compendium of Shakespearean scenes, songs, and sonnets, is as short and sweet as a chocolate heart
Girl With a Pearl Earring
Bona fide “art” movie starring this season’s It Girl, Scarlett Johansson, is as flat and enigmatic as the titular portrait by Vermeer.
Cut and Dried: A Primer
The Central Texas meat market roundup
Naked City
No end to elections in the west, and Ratliff scolds campaign tactics in the east
Are We on the Edge?
Spank Dance Company’s Black Things, in which black-clad dancers dance in near darkness, is original, striking, and resonant of the shadow side of our interior and exterior worlds
Cut and Dried: A Primer
Supermarket/Grocery Our complaints against conventional supermarket meat counters are many. One is the proliferation of the dreaded “family pack,” a styro tray so loaded with meat that unless you’re having a huge party, you could never finish it off in one sitting. If you can’t finish it, is it okay to freeze the remainder? Has…
‘Man Contempt’
A poem by Tesía Samara / Ben Brownlee, suicide at 15
Naked City
Kay fiddles, Baghdad burns, and Dean gets what Bush deserves
Behind America’s Funnyman
For rare comedian Neil Hamburger, it’s all about the laughs – and keeping the bug spray close
Cut and Dried: A Primer
Independent Meat Markets These companies are our local stalwarts of the old-style butcher shops, the kind of shops that used to be in every neighborhood before the advent of the supermarket, which brought us the convenience of one-stop shopping, later hours, slightly cheaper pricing, and mediocrity of product. Couple that with families cooking less at…
No Growth at the Growth Fund
Despite charging millions of dollars in management fees, the Texas Growth Fund has returned zero to the state
The Democrats, Scrambled
Climb on the roller coaster, the ride has just begun
Articulations
Choreographer Allison Orr pops up on the National Geographic Channel, and Ballet East and UT professor Bion Tsang are honored
Cut and Dried: A Primer
Sausage Makers Back in the prerefrigeration days, every local community had a butcher shop, usually owned by the biggest cattle raiser in the immediate area. They needed a way to prevent spoilage of meat that didn’t sell, and a way to use the trimmings, so smokers were built, and sausages were stuffed, as it had…
Temple-Inland Reads the Writing on the Wall
The Fortune 500 firm abandons its SOS-busting, job-boosting plans
Austin @ Large: A Bad Precedent
The courthouse deal is another chapter in Austin’s same old sad Downtown saga
Exhibitionism
The folks at ethos boldly go where no one has gone before with Pythia Dust, an outer space musical revue that feels at once brand new and yet curiously familiar
Food-o-File
Sam Eaves swims for another shore, Central Texas barbecue is hotter than ever, and your Valentine’s Day is all taken care of
Hispanic Chamber Honors Eastside Pioneer
Mission Funeral Home’s Lois Villaseñor earns honors from biz group
The Hightower Report
Exploring Mars trumps health care; and Bush’s tax cuts have spurred spending … by the rich people who got one
Exhibitionism
Once again, this year’s Mozart Birthday Celebration hosted by A. Mozart Fest brought out a high level of intensity and enthusiasm from some of Austin’s best musicians
Luv Doc Recommends: Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation
January is Austin’s coldest month. It would be something worth bitching about if the average high in January weren’t 60 degrees. Compare that with our unofficial sister city, Austin, Minn. (aka Spamtown, USA), where the average daily high is 17, and you start to realize that things could be a lot worse. We could be…
