Guilty!… Of Having a Career
For every bang, there is an equal and opposite whimper. If that’s true, considering the whopper of a show Ed Hamell aka Hamell on Trial put on last Friday at the Electric Lounge, his actual drive back to the wilds of New York should be a quiet one indeed. The flyers for the performance screamed…
A Little Princess
From the exquisite costumes to the remarkable set design to the superb performances, this fairy tale comes to life.
AISD Notebook
A group of African-American citizens, most often led by Rev. Ralph Daniels, president of the Black Baptist Ministers’ Union, has appeared at the citizens’ communications microphone at every regular board meeting. The union originally set its sights on AISD when the board decided last year to include “harassment based on sexual orientation” as an offense…
Naked City
Edited by Louisa C. Brinsmade, with contributions this week by Roseana Auten and Andrea Barnett. THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN: With a headline that read, “Economist Ray Perryman is Hailed as a Genius – for Self Promotion,” the Wall Street Journal’s Texas Journal section recently delivered a glaring spotlight on the career of the infamous…
About AIDS
Straight Voice Over the past five years, the percentage of AIDS cases contracted through heterosexual contract alone has increased dramatically. This is true for Austinites of all backgrounds. Heterosexual persons living with HIV/AIDS may experience feelings of isolation, grief, anger, frustration, fear, and other emotions. People’s Community Clinic will offer a support group for straight…
1995’s Funniest Person in Austin Tight Cannon
Chris Cannon knows that not everyone in town believes he deserved to win this year’s Funniest Person in Austin Contest. “A friend of mine in the audience overheard one woman say, when my name was announced, `He shouldn’t have been in it – he was too professional.'” Cannon laughs. “That was nice to hear.” And…
New Installation at MexicArte In Search of… by Rebecca Levy
Cars line up at night on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico, facing their headlights toward Tijuana. The leader of these California-style vigilantes, the ones who would vote for proposition 187, claims they are illuminating the issue of illegal aliens. A hundred cars participate, more and more as people hear about the weekly…
St. Stephen’s: Stressing Academics
On 400 acres of gorgeous, wooded countryside, St. Stephen’s Episcopal School sits just east of the Colorado River off the Capital of Texas highway. A private, coeducational preparatory school for both day and boarding students grades 6-12, the mission, according to school officials, is to educate young people “in mind, body, and spirit,” but the…
Austin Music Network Schedule
THURSDAY, MAY 18 10p m Tex Mix #22 10:30 Marcia Ball, Armadillo Sunday 11pm People’s Picks #56 11:30 EPKs: Tragically Hip, Bad Brains MID Todd Snider, Sincola, Idaho 1am Hooshmand & Ives, AAMF 1:30 Alternative 15 #55 FRIDAY, MAY 19 10pm Tex Mix #44: Jazzy Blues Mix 10:30 Malachi, AAMF 11pm Mariachi Estrella, AAMF 11:30…
Going Private
by Roseana Auten It’s all over, but for the crying. An initiative to spend public funds on private school tuition vouchers for a fraction of the state’s low-income, emotionally disadvantaged children has failed – for now – in the Texas Legislature. But even as some mourn the loss of this short-lived battle, Ralph Reed, executive…
Cassady, Kerouac, and Other Dharma Bums Back Beats by Jennifer Scoville and Dave Cook
How to explain this generation’s affinity for the Beat writers? Perhaps it’s all we have in common: The Beats were taunted and written off by the older generation as mindless and violent (see Beavis and Butt-head); they had an appetite for travel and experimentation with drugs (drug use is on the rise with today’s youth,…
Live Music Recommended
Kerrville, Friday 26 – Monday 29 Gather ’round the campfires, kids – and the main stages, and the kid’s stage, and the food booths, and the crafts stages. Oh, hell, just gather in Kerrville, which, for the next three weekends, is the Capital of Woody Guthrie wannabes (folk, boy, folk!). Confirmed for the evening concerts…
Affirming the Positive
by Alex de Marban At Wednesday’s work session, Police Chief Elizabeth Watson presented a report on the department’s affirmative action policies, with a list of goals for not only increasing the percentage of women and minorities on the force, but improving race and gender relations. The department has come under heavy scrutiny in recent months…
Road Shows
FRI 26 Leroy Parnell, Backyard FRI 26 Susan Werner, Chicago House FRI 26 Sons of Hercules, Hole in the Wall FRI 26 Jennyanykind, Electric Lounge FRI 26 & SAT 27Kimbute & Freedom Tribe, Aussie’s SAT 27 Brutal Juice, Manhole, Lint, Emo’s SAT 27 Wylie & the Wild West Show, Continental Club SAT 27 Catie Curtis,…
A Mass Media Empire
by Robert Bryce What do Roger Kintzel and Robin Leach have in common? Yes, they’re both middle-aged, white guys with receding hairlines. And yes, both have risen to lofty positions in their professions. But Kintzel, the publisher of the Austin American-Statesman, and Leach, the cloying host of the TV show, Lifestyles of the Rich and…
Show Times
Showtimes listed below start Friday, May 26 and cover the week ending Thursday, June 1. *An asterisk (*) before a title means that no passes or special admission discounts (apart from matinee discounts) will be accepted for any screening. *Parentheses indicate weekend showtimes for Saturdays and Sundays only, unless otherwise noted. *Changes may sometimes occur,…
Dancing About Architecture
by Ken Lieck Sorry if I missed your band this week. I was out having a big bony thing removed from my skull. Okay, it was a tooth. Still, I’m a little more woozy than usual right now so forgive me if all of my words out don’t come right in the order. Out of…
Hearth & Soul
The Big Baked Potato Dear Suzy, I live in a two-story townhome that was built in the early Seventies, when they didn’t know or didn’t care what the words “energy efficient” meant. I have had the city’s energy audit, and instituted the changes they recommended. However, the second floor still gets extremely hot. Can you…
Film
Recommendations all around. Only three new movies are reviewed here this week but every one of them’s a keeper. Thus, in a, perhaps, unprecedented move, we recommend our entire slate of new movies this week: Braveheart, Funny Bones, and A Little Princess. New Review BRAVEHEARTD: Mel Gibson; with Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Patrick McGoohan, Catherine McCormack,…
Coach’s Corner
“I get no respect.” – Rodney Dangerfield So, what’s wrong with shooting the messenger? Picture a king in Greece, long ago. He is having a nice day. Sun’s out, he’s catching rays on his hill, eating grapes, quaffing wine – a benevolent despot at rest. All’s well and tranquil. Suddenly, amid vulgar clamor, appears a…
A Journey Into Japanese Cuisine – Discovering Kyoto
Kyoto Japanese Restaurant 315 Congress Avenue, 482-9010 Lunch Monday-Friday, 11:30am-2pm; Dinner Monday-Thursday, 5:30-10pm; Saturday, 5:30-11pm Believe it or not, I got the bug to visit Kyoto Restaurant while on the road in central Mexico. After a month in Cuernavaca, I’d finished all the books I’d brought and came across a copy of Shogun, the James…
Day Trips
In the magical villages of Scarborough Faire Renaissance Festival, the sound of a weapon striking body armor rings with realism, making visitors wonder when the show stops being make-believe. For the knights, it’s a game of insults and challenges until the weapons are drawn. Then it becomes a serious business of scoring points and not…
The Search is Over
The Austin American-Statesman has a new editor. On May 23, Publisher Roger Kintzel hired Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau Chief Rich Oppel to assume the position in early July. Oppel arrived at Knight-Ridder in 1993, after 14 years as editor of the Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is also owned by Knight-Ridder. During Oppel’s tenure,…
food-o-file
Sushi South and North Musashino 347 Greystone, 795-8593 Dinner Sun & Tue-Thu, 5-10pm; Fri & Sat, 5-10:30pm Hey, Austin, we actually have a first-rate sushi bar right here in town! Located in the same building as Chinatown, on the southbound frontage road of MoPac just north of Far West Boulevard, is the chic but almost…
Not Great, Daily
by Robert Bryce As part of our ongoing coverage of Austin’s media, this week, contributing editor Robert Bryce talks to Austin American-Statesman Publisher Roger Kintzel about the daily, the parent company Cox Communications, and Cox’s recent (semi) victory in the Texas Legislature with the telecommunications bill. Robert Bryce also covers the history of Cox Communications…
Slicing the Phone Pie
To understand the frenzied competition for market share in the information-based economy, imagine that all the emerging information technologies are part of a giant pie. All the big media companies like AT&T, the Baby Bells, MCI, the big newspapers, and the cable companies are hungrily standing around the pie, knives at the ready. The only…
The Sovereign State of Circle C
It’s a Double Filibuster: The white Reeboks were on. The desk was stacked with books. At 5pm on Monday afternoon, Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin) was talking, talking, talking. He read letters from constituents. He read sections of the bill he was trying to kill – HB 3193 by Rep. Robert Saunders (D-La Grange) – which…
Record Reviews
JENNYANYKIND Blues of the Afflicted (No. 6) There are at once a dozen comparisons this band merits that wouldn’t really describe them anyway, so let’s just concentrate on the music. Slight country sensibilities meet Seventies-arena hooking on not-quite-right chords, topped off with quintessentially slacker vocals, and currently fashionable loud/soft dynamics. “In My Neighborhood” features a…
The Faces of “New” Country Buck and Hag Revisted by Lee Nichols
Bakersfield, California, is a pretty unassuming little city. With a population of only about 150,000 and few tall buildings, it seems more like the rural towns that surround it. It’s a placid, quiet facade that belies the city’s extreme importance in the history of country music. In the Sixties, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard both…
Braveheart
Gibson directs and stars in this rousing 13th century epic about the Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace.
Matt & Susy’s Two-Step and Swing Dance Lessons
The two-step. Maybe you associate it with those redneck, chaw-cheeked, gun-totin’ sons of bitches in Lubbock, who took ever’ chance they could get to whup your skinny Commie ass. Can’t blame you. Maybe you wanted to learn, but you eschew the country (and Western) philosophy that says if you can’t dance, you can’t play. Well,…
Funny Bones
Funny Bones 1995, R, 128 min. Directed by Peter Chelsom, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Oliver Platt, Lee Evans, George Carl, Freddie Davies, Leslie Caron, Jerry Lewis, Richard Griffiths, Oliver Reed, Ruta Lee, Harold Nicholas. Funny Bones is a wonderfully eccentric movie, one whose narrative advancement occurs more through epiphanies than events. Unfolding…
