Cover Story
Yardbird’s Blues
How the bone-out chicken-fried chicken breast is destroying American menus
From Owners Bench to Park Bench
Backhoe dealer gets to run Texas Parks and Wildlife.
Will Courtney: Simple Man
Brothers and Sisters’ Will Courtney talks California dreaming.
Arrest in Morales Beating Death
APD press release regarding the death of David Morales, which, unintentionally or not, they initially inflamed.
Move Wal-Mart Into the Bat Cave
The bat-brains on the Statesman Editorial Board reach a Serious, Important Consensus on Northcross.
City Says Stay out of the Springs
High waters close Barton Springs until further notice.
Looks to Be Three and Out for the U.S. at Copa América, and More
Two big international tournaments going on this week, both on basic cable – in Spanish. Looks like it’ll be three and out at the Copa América for the young U.S. team; they were crushed by Argentina, 4-1, then played much better against Paraguay, but still lost 3-1. That leaves them with a slim chance of…
Oh, OK, Dude. That Makes It All Better.
Will someone please just hand Isaiah Washington a ballgag, and let’s get this over with…
Local Conservation Programs Get Big Bucks
Two local conservation programs will get six-figure boosts from the federal government in the near future, thanks to some old fashioned pork-barrelin’ from Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. The Senate Committee on Appropriations last week approved $275,000 to expand the 22,000-acre Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge and awarded $300,000 to the Austin Clean Water Program…
City Capital-Improvement Projects Under Discussion
A subcommittee of the Planning Commission met Monday night to discuss recommendations on the city’s capital-improvement projects, including those funded in the recent bond election. Recommendations going to the full Planning Commission next week will include moving more of the affordable-housing bonds to the front end of the bond program, tweaking priorities in sidewalk building,…
Car Collision Kills Bicyclist in Northeast Austin
Bicyclist Mandi Terese Boswell, 28, was hit by a car Monday and killed in Northeast Austin. According to the Austin Police Department, the vehicle was traveling westbound on Highway 290 East and collided with Boswell, who was wearing a helmet, at the Springdale Road intersection. The driver remained at the scene. Boswell was transported to…
Town Lake Folk Festival
A song about waterfront development tickles SaveTownLake.org’s fancy.
First Damp Squib Announced
Round Rock fireworks rained out.
No Relief Upstream
More rain, more closed lakes, more safety warnings.
Project Oh No She Di’int!
Project Rungay tells it like it T-I-is.
You’re Never Going Boating Ever Again
Watercraft ban on Austin waterways extended yet again, to Friday.
Breaking: Second Lawsuit Filed Against Northcross Wal-Mart
Allandale Neighborhood Association joins in the legal battle against the supercenter at Northcross.
Clemency Then, Clemency Now
Bush grants clemency – but it wasn’t always this way.
Fly the GLBT-Friendly Skies
Texas-based Southwest Air aims high with new GLBT Web page.
A Shout-Out to My Log Cabin Bros.
Conservative queer blog Gay Patriot reports that the Republicans are giving refunds. Not like they can’t afford it.
Van de Putte Goes to Denver
Texas senator gets a big boost from the DNC.
Texas Rollergirls’ Scores and Photos
The Dallas Derby Devils’ All-Stars were no match for the Texas Rollergirls’ Hell Marys who defeated the out-of-city competition handily, 92-50. The Hustlers continued their solid play routing the struggling rookie-heavy squad of the Honky Tonk Heartbreakers, 73-26. Next up for these roller gals is their championship pitting the Hell Marys against the Hotrod Honeys…
Young Hate Crime Survivor/Activist Mourned
After surviving and unspeakably cruel hate crime, young David Ritcheson allegedly took his own life this past weekend.
Joe Montana – Nice Guy, Pretty Good Football Player
Most of my bad decisions have included booze, bottle rockets, the improper use of a Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, or a dirty blonde at the end of a bar offering to buy me a drink or something more exotic. But possibly the greatest mistake I have committed was storming off to my bedroom on Jan. 22, 1989,…
Cleanliness Is Close to Confession
Will a shopping list prove murder?
Backbeat to the Music
Pete Best at Threadgill’s.
Bombings and Business
Fox News looks on the bright side of the UK’s latest attempted attacks.
‘MLB 07: The Show’ for the PlayStation2
OK, I may have been a little too harsh on MLB 2K7 for the Xbox 360 – that game has certainly grown on me, and the jump from 360 to PS2 for this game was slightly painful – but The Show has my heart when it comes to video-game baseball. Aside from console differences, The…
Pink Glocks???
Bill O’Reilly’s pricking up his ears again.
True Colors Last Week at the Woodlands
The Gay Place gave away a trip to Houston to True Colors and we have proof.
Serious Freak On: Pics From Pride Houston and Bartini
More shots (of the photo and Jell-O varieties) from the Houston trip
Clinton vs. Clinton
Ask and tell, as far as Hillary is concerned.
There’s a Not-So-New Parliamentarian
Speaker Craddick announces his new parliamentarian, and Lege watchers wait for the fall-out.
Austin Energy Ain’t Gonna Get Enroned
Austin Energy’s bringing in market experts on keeping the lights burning.
Back in to the Vault
Reviving the Dead’s latest from Rhino’s vaults.
HELLYEAH: FUCKNO
In a WORLD EXCLUSIVE!, Revolver, “The World’s Loudest Rock Magazine,” announced earlier this year that the planets aligned for the creation of the “ultimate metal supergroup!” Its members? Paid staff columnist and Dallas-native Vinnie Paul (who fields hard hitting journalistic inquiries like, “If you were gay, who’s the first dude you would bone?”), Mudvayne’s Chad…
More Dam Facts
Even if the rain stops soon, river levels could stay high for weeks.
Futrell Administrator of the Year: ‘Get the Hell Out’ Accolades up Next
Admin of the Year: how about that?
Soccer Watch
Austin Lightning lose fourth straight, and more
The TAKS Is Dead! Long Live the TAKS!
Students continue to cram for slow-to-expire high-stakes tests
Point Austin: Oregon Dreams, Austin Nightmare
Leave for a week, and there goes the neighborhood
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Benito’s birthright and the nitty-gritty on sandpaper
TAKS Camp Facts
Official title: Summer TAKS Power Workshop Location: Austin, McCallum, and Travis high schools (four classes at each school; one teacher for every 10 students) Subjects: Math, science, English, social studies. Class content: Review of practice tests, test-taking techniques, and basic vocabulary and skills. Days of Instruction: 16 TAKS camp students: Most have taken the test…
Beside the Point
A weird week at City Council
The Common Law
Class-action lawsuit – what is it?
SB 1031: The new exams
Senate Bill 1031, carried by Plano Republican Florence Shapiro (effective Sept. 1), will kill off the roundly hated Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test (by very slow degrees), but it won’t get rid of the idea and practice of universal testing. Under Shapiro’s bill, finally approved unanimously by both House and Senate, the Texas…
The Hightower Report
The Seventeen Traditions; and Bushites’ Ethical Cluelessness
The Morales Murder: Misreported worldwide
Blame for sloppy reporting goes to … APD?
Not Enough Cooks
Janeane Garofalo discusses Ratatouille, stirs up trouble
Home Style
Barbara Chisholm’s favorite fried-chicken recipe
TEA: Neeley Steps Down
Official story: Forced out when informed by governor’s staff that he’s ready for new leadership at Texas Education Agency
Chewing the Rat
With Patton Oswalt
TCB
That’s the news, and I am outta here
Photoasis
Will van Overbeek’s camera captures the eternal allure of Austin’s favorite swimming hole
A Place to Try
The Lost Sock Launderette & Coffee Lounge
Oak Hill Redevelopment: Varying visions for town center
Concept of town center node in Oak Hill looks like it’s getting tougher – not easier – as city’s neighborhood plan progresses
In Print
Lights, Camera, History: Portraying the Past in Film edited by Richard Francaviglia and Jerry Rodnitzky Texas A&M University Press, 138 pp., $19.95 “The farmer and the cowman should be friends!” Such is the lyric that constituted a main theme of the 1955 big-screen musical Oklahoma! It was a declaration that, during the time period represented,…
24 Summers at Barton Springs Pool
Photographs by Will van Overbeek
Sterling Allen: The Allen transformer as self-generator …
Sterling Allen’s irrational, exuberant drawings in the exhibit ‘Writesy Drawsy’ are so decisive in placement and texture that they immediately send you to a happy place as a viewer
Food-o-File
The Las Manitas model has other restaurants wondering where the $750,000-forgivable-loan line forms
Campaign Buzz
Distant city and county elections begin to draw early feelers
DVD Watch
The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete First Season Turner Home Entertainment, $26.98 “Sugar. Spice. And everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls. But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction … Chemical X. Thus the Powerpuff Girls were born.” With those words in 1998, The Powerpuff Girls…
Is That Science?: The elements of smile
The initial results of the experiment Is That Science? – wherein members of the theatrical company St. Idiot Collective interacted with the element Improvium – were fast, furious, and funny
Wine of the Week
Kiwi Pinot is a best buy
Will Texas Catch Some Solar Rays?
Local and worldwide solar-energy experts convene in Austin and deliver this message: The day when solar energy will compete economically with traditional fossil-fueled power is fast approaching, and Texas is doing much less than it could be to utilize its solar potential
Film News
Projects aplenty
Jessie Otto Hite: With the Blanton built, the director takes her leave
With the Blanton Museum of Art’s new galleries open and drawing record crowds and the companion building set to open next year, Jessie Otto Hite has decided to retire as director in 2008
Event Menu
June 29-July 5
Lawsuit Against APD Officers Alleges Civil Rights Violations
Family of 24-year-old beaten and arrested last summer by APD officer at bus stop files federal lawsuit against officer and his supervisors
TV Eye
POV at 20
Arts Review
TexARTS’ staging of Carousel found the humanity in this unusually dark musical, bringing us close to even the cruelest characters and taking them to a place of comfort and light
The Girls of Summer
Austin’s inaugural all-girls rock camp looks out after its own
Developing Stories
Liveable City presents 2007 Vision Awards; ROMA Design Group working on initial research stage of Downtown Austin Plan; and architectural team for San Antonio master plan selected
Arts Review
The Threepenny Opera, the deliciously caustic musical by Brecht and Weill, has been reinterpreted by Austin Playhouse, with unfortunate results, as a kind of broad slapstick
Phases & Stages
Radio BirdmanEmo’s, June 24 Rumbling down Dick Dale’s “Pipeline” in a deep tonal swell of bass, opener “Hand of Law” assaulted Emo’s front room 30 years after its statute of limitations had gone the way of the Tasmanian tiger. Frontman Rob Younger, whose stringy blond sneer menaced right out of a Hammer B-movie hair-raiser, barked,…
Reefer Madness: This Is Your Brain on Drugs
ONDCP’s latest attempt at scaring you into believing marijuana is bad is pure propaganda
Live Free or Die Hard
As John McClane, Bruce Willis once more brings the noise and blows the bejesus out of the bad guys.
From the Ground Up
Dagoberto Gilb on Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature
Phases & Stages
The White StripesIcky Thump (Warner Bros.) There are two guarantees with each new White Stripes disc: The dynamic duo will put their best foot forward, then close with something better left on the cutting-room floor. On Icky Thump, their sixth LP and Warner Bros. debut, recorded at Nashville, Tenn.’s Blackbird Studio, the title track erupts…
Naked City
Qote of the Week “Our culture typically acknowledges people for qualities such as intelligence, physical strength, and personal bravery. This may be the first award the city ever gave for stubbornness to acknowledge an activist that wouldn’t go away.” – Paul Robbins, a constant critic of Austin Energy, after a Downtown chiller plant was named…
Sicko
Professional gadfly Michael Moore alights on the topic of the shortcomings of the American health-care system, and crafts his most widely accessible film to date.
Page Two: Brain Wash
Coming to terms with conspiracy theorists, with some help from Loudon Wainwright III
Phases & Stages
Queens of the Stone AgeEra Vulgaris (Interscope) Following the firing of mainstay bassist Nick Oliveri after 2002’s near perfect Songs for the Deaf, whose stellar supporting cast included Dean Ween, Dave Grohl, and the chimney-smoke croon of Mark Lanegan, last Queen standing Josh Homme dominated 2005’s ghostly Lullabies to Paralyze, a reintroduction of sorts to…
Happenings
June 28-July 4
Ratatouille
Pixar scores another triumph of animated wonder with this story of a rat who craves haute cuisine over garbage.
Oops!
Our latest batch
Phases & Stages
Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur(Warner Bros.) By 2003, Sudan was already impoverished, famine-stricken, and plagued by decades of tribal warfare. Then President Omar al-Bashir’s authoritarian regime enlisted mercenaries known as Janjaweed (“devil on horseback” in Arabic) to help quash rebels in the western Darfur region, the largest African nation by area…
Wallering at Last
Let’s review the recent history of the Waller Creek tunnel project
Evening
Featuring the work of a great many fine actresses, this movie is less than the sum of its parts and runs aground while trying to create a mountain from a molehill.
After a Fashion
Stephen ponders his career in radio and what to wear for it
Phases & Stages
Sinéad O’ConnorTheology (Koch) “Jerusalem,” an unholy synthesis of steel strings, shrieking in tongues, and religious repression off 1987 Sinéad O’Connor debut The Lion and the Cobra, comes full-circle on Theology. Twice. Unplugged, Éire-y, the devout Dubliner’s hometown acoustic edit yields nine self-penned songs of devotion à la the Blood of Christ, full-bodied and warm. Didactic.…
TDH ‘Kidnapped Dream’
More than 400 protestors converge upon T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor
Apne
Bollywood film about an ex-boxer whose career was cut short and the expectations he has of his sons to fulfill his legacy.
Day Trips
White-water rafting on the Rio Grande in New Mexico is a huge rush and a little scary, too
Phases & Stages
Rolling StonesThe Biggest Bang “Good evening, Austin. How y’all doing? All right?” All right, Keith. “Ya got a great spot here. I’m thinking of moving in.” All of Texas doesn’t have that kind of room. “I say that to all the girls. Anyway, I thought, just for a change, we’d pay homage to a great…
New Akins Principal: Running from Ysleta?
Ysleta ISD board apologizes for actions of former Bel Air High School Principal Daniel Girard, who is coming here to head Akins High School
Luv Doc Recommends: Karaoke Apocalypse
Singers get all the strange. It’s the truth. Look it up. Wikipedia that shit. Yes, there are some exceptions: Eddie van Halen; Tommy Lee; Peter Criss; pretty much any nonsinging member of Blues Traveler, Metallica, or Motörhead, but for the most part, if you rock the mic, chances are you’ll be rocking someone’s world after…
