Cover Story
Greenbacks for Green Space
City moves to make development pay more for parks
Juiced: Don’t Cry for Me, Roger Clemens
The Houston Astros are said to be petitioning the office of Commissioner Bud Selig to amend their schedule so that at least half their remaining 2007 games are against the Cincinnati Reds. Or they should. Although they lost this afternoon’s getaway game to the Redlegs 9-5, Chris “Remember Me?” Burke did hit a three-run homer,…
Austin Lightning Moves Home Games to House Park
The Austin Lightning announced today that “due to stadium circumstances beyond our control,” all home games this season – including the home opener this Saturday against New Orleans – have been moved to House Park Stadium. Bummer for them to have to move on such short notice, no doubt, but House Park’s a great venue;…
Houston Hyatt: No Fabio??? No Go!
Why was Laura Baumbach’s book promo censored at the Houston Hyatt.
Election Workers Needed, Many Polls Combined
Don’t forget to vote May 12.
Pay up for Parking
No more free parking at City Hall
Adding Wal-Mart to the Agenda
RG4N wants City Council to put Wal-Mart on the agenda next week
Art of War 2 Invades Convention Center
True face-punching connoisseurs got a taste of the old mixed martial-arts combat in January when Chuck Norris brought his inaugural World Combat League championship into town. But while the schedule for the next WCL season, with the newly relocated (Austin) Texas Dragons, is still TBA, fight fans can get their kicks (ha) at the Art…
Lightning Home Opener and More
Austin’s Premier Development League team, the Austin Lightning, has its home opener Saturday at 7:30pm against the New Orleans Shell Shockers, after a split on the road last weekend with the highly regarded El Paso Patriots: a 1-0 loss Friday night, followed by a 2-1 win Saturday. The new-look Lightning will be inaugurating their new…
Nailed It!
Special session, anyone?
Scratchman Strikes Again
Lotto superhero returns from the grave
Who Could Vote Against Cheap Gas?
A proposed gas-tax holiday means it may be cheaper to get to all those state facilities closed due to lack of funds.
West Lake Hills = La La Land
Is Liz Carpenter really weighing in on the West Lake Hills election – like this?
The Fraud of Voter Fraud
Today, the House is taking up House Bill 1462, a bill from Rep. Bill Zedler that would allow the attorney general to investigate voter fraud cases in individual counties – currently, cases of fraud must be alleged to cross county lines before the AG steps in. So what’s the problem? “Voter fraud” under AG Greg…
Giving City Hall the (Small) Business
Small Business Group raises some serious concerns about the city’s finacial forecast – in between all the hand-wringing.
Vacation, All I Ever Wanted …
What’s your fantasy?
What Bush Could Learn From Brenda
Why Dubya’s Texas charm could do with some Old World finessing.
Y Kant Tori Spell?
Tori Amos on this week’s word.
Funding Texas’ Parks and Wildlife: No Walk Through the Park
Parks may finally get more funding, but advocates are wary of shifting some assets to the Texas Historical Commission
Dying in Committee – Mass Culls
It turns out that 150 House members can’t be everywhere at once.
UIL Spring Meet Under Way
The high school state championships in tennis, golf, and track and field are in Austin this week
There’s a Boob Here, All Right
Dan Patrick loves him some wings and breasts.
Dying in Committee, Part 6
No permanent tent prisons this sessions – just the temporary ones that are already there.
Don’t Ask; Don’t … Oh, What the Hell … Honey, Come on Back!
Jason Knight told but was asked back…
The Texas Rollergirls’ Hotrod Honeys Remain Undefeated
Our local Texas Rollergirls were nice enough to invite the HaRD Knocks Roller Derby squad from Houston to our fair city this past Sunday but then were not so nice in making them face the hottest Roller Derby team in the world, the Hotrod Honeys. The Honeys are fresh off wins over the Hustlers and…
Patti, Mary, and Miriam
Girl talk with Patti, Mary, and Miriam.
Dying in Committee, Part 5
What business-friendly constitutional amendment just died in the House?
Sorry, I Thought You Were Someone Else
TXU is changing its name. That’ll help global warming.
Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves
Wachovia Bank robbed … by a skinny twentysomething girl in a Longhorns hat?
Dying in Committee: Countin’ the Days
Lege update: 119 days down, 21 to go.
Dying in Committee, Part 4
Amputees won’t get much help from the Lege this session on low insurance payouts.
Severe Hair Cuts
One Duece Getty doesn’t wanna drop….
Aquaholics Anonymous
Austin’s got a drinking problem.
What Price Freedom of Information?
Open government could come with a per-page surcharge.
Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Texas Youth Commission makes sure there will never be another media scandal – by locking the media out.
Outlaws Lose 32-20 to Oklahoma City
The Austin Outlaws have lost three regular-season games in the last two years. All three to the dreaded Oklahoma City Lightning. Yesterday the Lightning rode into town and handed the Outlaws their first loss of the season, besting Austin 32-20. The Outlaws (2-1) visit Pensacola next week, followed by a bye week, and then travel…
Patriots Taste the Moss-Flavored Kool-Aid
My mom made the best Kool-Aid ever. There was nothing like running up the path at my uncle’s cottage on Collins Pond in Maine to a delicious pitcher of that sugary fruit punch. All the kids in my neighborhood used to make me ask her to make it like I was the only one at…
CoachWHOla? No … NOLA, baby.
On the crawdad’s trail…
Cocaine: Does a Body Good!
What’s next, Coca-Cola? It seems Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s legal eagles have got themselves all hopped up on Cocaine. That’s right, Cocaine. In a lawsuit filed May 2 in Dallas County District Court, the AG’s Consumer Protection and Public Health Division says Las Vegas-based Redux Beverages LLC must be stopped from peddling in Texas…
Wranglers Prepare for the Storm
The Wranglers (3-5) take on division rivals the Tampa Bay Storm (2-6) 3pm Sunday at the Frank Erwin Center. Starting in 1987 as the Pittsburgh Gladiators, the Storm are the oldest franchise in the modern Arena Football League, making a total of eight Arena Bowl trips under the two team names and winning the damn…
Southern Soap Opera
The Drive-by Truckers’ two-night stand.
The Hunt Is On
The Ninth Annual Career Expo is Wednesday, May 9 from 9am to 3pm at the Palmer Events Center.
I’m in Your ‘Trek’, Reading Your Memes
OH HAI I HAS TRIBBLE
No Knock and No Crack, Pt. 3
There were more – and even more disturbing – revelations out of Atlanta last week in the ongoing story of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, who was killed by Atlanta PD during a bogus drug raid at her house on Nov. 21 – including that police actually planted pot in Johnston’s basement to bolster their insistence that…
Kickin’ It Old Skool
Jamie Kennedy wakes up after a breakdancing injury put him in a coma 20 years ago. That’s when this film’s real trauma begins.
Water This Cottage Industry
Shopping at Handmade Austin Women’s spring show is a good way to keep our cool local craft scene blooming
Finding God in the Gumbo
Once in the Ninth Ward and now in the Hill Country, the Smoking for Jesus Ministry serves up Real New Orleans Style fare with a side of spiritual nourishment
Texas Platters
Beaver NelsonExciting Opportunity (Freedom) Beaver Nelson’s folksy witticism has always held the tenuous line between genuine insight and clichés that are more tried than true. Unfortunately, Exciting Opportunity, the disheveled Dad Who Rocks’ seventh album, is more the latter than the former. Plowing familiar terrain alongside longtime collaborator Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Nelson fails to reap…
Supremes Examine Capital Punishment, Mental Illness
How mentally ill does a prisoner have to be in order to deem execution cruel and unusual punishment?
Crew Stories: Dan Eggleston
Dan Eggleston
Spider-Man 3
When cascading through the cityscape, Spider-Man 3 still makes us gasp with delight, but on Earth those gasps come solely in reaction to the cynical dreariness of the script.
C. Denby Swanson: A play for Clifford
Austin playwright C. Denby Swanson has received a prestigious national grant to develop a play based on the life of Clifford Antone with the Zachary Scott Theatre Center
Digesting the Buffalo Gap Wine and Food Summit
What happened during a weekend in heaven
Texas Platters
Jack IngramThis Is It (Big Machine) What’s with the steely look Jack Ingram offers on the cover of This Is It? If This Is It, what he’s been aspiring to after 15 years of hard work, wouldn’t there be a glimmer of a smile? After all, Ingram’s on a big label, with songs that reach…
May 12 Special Election
The Chronicle endorsements
Also at the Drafthouse Downtown …
Farley Granger and Quentin Tarantino
Civic Duty
The line separating civic duty from vigilantism is the focus of this paranoid thriller set squarely in the new age of terrorism.
Free Comic Book Day: Hey kids! Free books with words and pictures!
Free Comic Book Day, which began with the opening of the first Spider-Man film, has been so successful for the comics industry that it’s still here for Spidey’s second sequel
Mann’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que
Perhaps the friendliest barbecue joint in Austin
Texas Platters
Nathan HamiltonSix Black Birds (On the Corner Music) Can it really be five years since Nathan Hamilton’s last studio album? One thing for sure is that the local singer-songwriter represented on Six Black Birds isn’t the same artist who won New Folk honors at Kerrville in 2000. Where Hamilton previously worked the twang/folk road, he’s…
On the Lege
Voter-ID bills protect voters … by keeping them away from polls
DVD Watch
Army of Shadows Criterion, $39.95 Arriving as it did between two of Jean-Pierre Melville’s greatest triumphs, Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge, Army of Shadows should have been a huge success, both in its native France and on the international arthouse circuit. Unfortunately, the release of the movie, which follows a group of resistance fighters…
The TV Set
David Duchovny and Sigourney Weaver star in this dyspeptic drama about the work of creating television shows.
Playwrights @ UT: An Edgar for Dietz, a Wendy for Ramsey
It was a good week for playwrights at UT as a student received a new prize for young women dramatists and a faculty member earned an honor from the Mystery Writers of America
In Print
Cowgirl Cuisine: Rustic Recipes & Cowgirl Adventures From a Texas Ranch
Texas Platters
Girl in a ComaBoth Before I’m Gone (Blackheart) As Nina Diaz purrs, “She won’t mind; they always said a women’s touch can cure no man,” it’s easy to see why Joan Jett snatched up these three San Antone ladies for her label. Featuring sisters Nina (guitar) and Phanie (drums), plus Jenn Alva on bass, the…
Demanding Lege Action on Detained Families
Activists hold “People’s Hearing” at Capitol to call attention to house resolution demanding alternatives to incarceration of immigrant children .
TV Eye
Healing power
Arts Review
With its quick tempo, rapid-fire jokes, and backstage look at Gone With the Wind, Austin Playhouse’s Moonlight and Magnolias is accessible, short, and extremely entertaining theatre
Food-o-File
Chocolate and the surprising tang of dill pickle popcorn: Need we say more?
Texas Platters
KVRX Local Live Vol. 11: Assacre to Zookeeper Time to dive into Austin’s musical wealth. And KVRX knows it. In this 11th installment of the college radio frequency’s Sunday night program, the glorious (Peter & the Wolf, Possessed by Paul James) and the not-so (Cry Blood Apache, the Moaners, Ghostland Observatory) are caught on disc,…
Ounce of Prevention, $467 Million of Cure
House State Affairs Committee approves measure that would increase education regarding family-planning programs and sexually transmitted disease prevention.
Austin Shakespeare Festival: Raising the Curtain for ASF
The Austin Shakespeare Festival has been invited by gaming guru Richard Garriott to perform regularly at the Curtain, his scaled-down replica of the Globe Theatre
Event Menu
May 3-10
Texas Platters
Book of Shadows… And Then We All Woke Up (Ethedrone Muzac) Books of Shadows’ latest full-length is one long, strange trip. Carlton Crutcher, formerly of ST 37, mans the keys, and wife Sharon’s cosmic chants provide an ambient, bewitching drone. Often, the music is celestial, dusted with theremin, synth, and guitar, but mostly it’s unsettling,…
Capitol Briefs
• A bill meant to address major funding shortfalls at the state’s parks is set for debate on the House floor at press time. HB 12, offered by House Culture, Recreation, and Tourism Committee Chair Harvey Hilderbran, addresses requests by a state parks advisory board and a coalition of parks advocacy and environmental groups for…
‘American Fiesta’: New York not quite bowled over
Steven Tomlinson’s American Fiesta made its Big Apple debut at the Vineyard Theatre on April 25, and the response from New York critics was less than ecstatic
Arena Rock
Wranglers share hot dogs and tax brackets with their fans
Texas Platters
Ornette ColemanTo Whom Who Keeps a Record (Water) “Music Always Brings Goodness to Us All. P.S. Unless One Has Some Other Motive for Its Use.” These are the song titles from this marvelous album, originally released as a Japanese-only LP in 1975. The music comes from two sessions in 1959-60 that produced the Fort Worth-born…
Developing Stories
Why can’t Jennifer Kim find a co-sponsor on council for a resolution to explore a public-private partnership for the redevelopment of Northcross Mall?
Arts Review
Thanks to an ensemble of fine actresses, Austin Playhouse’s new production of Steel Magnolias is a breath of fresh Louisiana air
AFL Rules
Field and Equipment The AFL field is 50 yards long (excluding two 8-yard end zones) and 85 feet wide. In terms of an NFL field, this is half as long and, for some reason, 53.125% as wide. Players are not made to scale. Goal posts are 9 feet apart with the crossbar set at 15…
Texas Platters
Born In The Honey: The Pinetop Perkins Story(Vizztone) Hubert Sumlin puts it best when he exclaims, “What a guy he is. What a musician. But he’s not just a musician. He’s got some God in him.” The blues guitarist is referring to 93-year-old peer Pinetop Perkins. Born in the Honey does a fair job of…
Point Austin: You Think Austin’s Weird?
Consider the ballots beyond city limits
Readings
Before the outgrowth of women’s confessional literature clogged the bookstore shelves and the blogosphere
It’s Prime Time in the Owner’s Box
Playing in the National Football League is “the common goal of any kid that puts on a uniform” says veteran Wranglers defensive back Damon Mason. Sure, but what do NFL players dream about? Deion Sanders, Wranglers co-owner and sure bet for NFL Hall of Fame induction, says most players just want a team of their…
Beside the Point
The dark storm of budget season looms on the horizon
Readings
Jack Jackson’s final project is both a continuation of his acclaimed and realistic historical comics and a reinterpretation of a comic strip that inspired him as a boy
Arena Football: Road to Glory
Game review
Parkland Dedication: What the Ordinance Says
The Parkland Dedication Ordinance requires residential developers to contribute either land or money toward the local park system. Rather than directly dedicating parkland on their sites, most developers have met the requirement by paying a fee-in-lieu – based on land values and varying widely from tract to tract. PARD staff has proposed amendments that would…
Naked City
Quote of the Week”The president can veto our attempt to secure a safe, orderly phased redeployment of our troops, but he cannot veto reality. Our troops will return; it is only a matter of how much blood and money will be lost before they do.” – Austin Rep. Lloyd Doggett, on President Bush’s veto of…
Oops!
Our latest batch
The Pearl King
Formed through irritation, time, and friction, yet gorgeous, imperfect, and universally valued: Oliver Rajamani
Investing in Downtown Parks
Turning underperforming parks into great outdoor people places requires both vision and cash. This PARD “wish list” documents current needs – all unfunded – in city parks Downtown, and along central Town Lake. Parkland-dedication fees from new Downtown condos and apartments could help fund the projects listed. (Cost* and short-term needs: unfunded) Historic Squares &…
Immigrants Tell Country to ‘Listen Up’
Thousands take to Austin streets for immigrant rights rally and march
After a Fashion
Austin is graced by the sexy people, old and young
Rajamani Reviewed
RajamaniForty Days (Rajamani Productions) RajamaniForty Nights (Rajamani Productions) With these two simultaneously released albums, Oliver Rajamani has again showed his mastery for intertwining international music styles. With Forty Days, the more effusive of the pair, the South India-born Rajamani and his eclectic ensemble weave a brilliant, exciting tapestry that principally blends traditional Indian music with…
Real Value: The Parks Premium
Can the effect of parkland on the values of nearby homes be quantified in dollars? Texas A&M professor John Crompton, who has extensively researched the issue, believes that it can, using what he dubs “The Proximate Principle.” Crompton’s research shows that quality parks and open space directly increase the property value of homes. “In effect,…
Happenings
May 3-9
Day Trips
Boca Chica Beach might be the most unspoiled public beach on the Texas coast
Mother-of-Pearl
An iridescent substance created by mollusk shells, mother-of-pearl adorns some of the thoroughbred instruments in Rajamani’s noisemaker stable. Cajon: Originating in Peru, a wooden box drum used in flamenco Dumbek: Famed Mediterranean goblet drum Nylon-string guitar: Torch of flamenco, brandished by Paco De Lucía, Carlos Montoya, and Pepe Habichuela. Oud: Arguably the über-lute, precursor to…
Benzene Questions at Crestview Station
Benzene discovered in groundwater under portion of former Huntsman chemical-testing facility property, potential snag for Crestview Station developers
Death Row Inmates’ Sentences Overturned
Supremes overturn death sentences of three Texas inmates, sending them back to state courts and calling into question the death sentences of dozens of other inmates
Soccer Watch
Debate over the player of the year, and more
All the King’s Men
Collaborators paint a picture of the Pearl King
Primarily Primates: AG Folds on Apes
Lawyers representing warring factions in bitter dispute over operation of Hill Country primate sanctuary square off over conditions of settlement between attorney general and sanctuary’s board and management
The Hightower Report
Stamping Out the Free Press; and Democracy v. ZIP Code 10021
The Invisible
This thriller directed by David S. Goyer serves up teen angst with its supernatural thrills.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Sexy table legs and not-so Puritans
Pearl Therapy
One alternative health treatment is a mixture of pearls boiled in milk. Another healing catalyst is music. Rajamani contributed to his partner Anita Jung’s two domestically released healing albums, 2001’s Words From Within and this year’s In Tranquil Silence, and also works one-on-one and in classrooms. Locals in the know opine. Susan Burek, Rajamani teaches…
Red Ink on Second Street: Default or Confusion?
Something’s fishy Downtown, and local retailers say it stinks
A Nerd in King Vidiot’s Court (or in Uncle Rico’s Van)
Jon Gries will not pull a “Tiffany-mall-tour-type thing” and act above the crowd at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown; he will enjoy Napoleon Dynamite and Joysticks along with you
Next
Nicolas Cage plays a man who can see into the future – a talent the FBI wants to put to use capturing terrorists.
TCB
The Backyard’s parking quagmire, Chris Cornell outshines those other guys, and more
The Common Law
Teenage workers – can my 14-year-old work?
Texas Platters
Sly & the Family StoneThe Collection (Sony/Columbia Legacy) Dallas-born Sylvester “Sly” Stewart & the Family Stone – younger siblings Freddie on guitar and Rosie on keyboards, foil/eventual nemesis Larry Graham on bass, drummer Greg Errico, trumpetess Cynthia Robinson, and sax maniac Jerry Martini – exploded existing notions of popular music. For scholars who love a…
Supremes to Hear Case of Mexican National on Death Row
Convicted and sentenced to death for 1993 gang rape and murder, Jose Medellin has argued his case should be overturned.
Spiro’s Experiment
The Austin Film Society Documentary Tour: 10 Under 10 and Its First Five Years
Luv Doc Recommends: Cinco de Mayo Celebration
Saturday is Cinco de Mayo – the day that Mexicans, Americans, Mexican-Americans, and most importantly beer companies celebrate the huge ass whuppin’ Mexican Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza and his ragtag army laid on the French Foreign Legion nearly 200 years ago at the Battle of Puebla. Viva Zaragoza! The French were getting all up in our…
