Texas Monthly articles from January 2004

Texas Monthly archives from January 2004

A giant void: it's a sad day when Bill Ratliff, the best legislator of his time, decides there's no place for him in the poisonous partisan world of Texas politics.(Behind the Lines)
January 1, 2004... "BUILT FOR GIANTS but inhabited by pygmies." Such was the description of the Capitol invoked in days of yore by a Houston legislator and lobbyist (and later a congressman) named Bob Eckhardt, who all too frequently found himself engaged on the...

Portrait of a lady.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... MIMI SWARTZ CAPTURED MY ATtention with vivid descriptions and endearing characterizations; she depleted the Connallys in such away that Texans should feel proud of them ["The Witness," November 2003]. The photography by Dan Winters was superb,...

Misfire?(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... S. C. GWYNNE MAKES THE CASE that Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, has had his share of hits and misses ["Weapon of Mass Communication," November 2003]. But in seeking an example of a Bartlett-choreographed success, Mr....

Forgotten kids.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... I WAS HAPPY TO SEE SOMEONE address the limited amount of resources available to our mentally ill children ["'Their Last Good Chance to Get Better,'" November 2003]. The state is sorely lacking in even basic services. Of note in the story was...

Judicial review.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... I READ PAUL BURKA'S OPINION about Texas Supreme Court justice Priscilla Owen [Behind the Lines: "Judging Priscilla," November 2003] and wondered, "What am I? A potted plant?" Mr. Burka falls prey to the technique of selecting those few...

Around the state: a selective guide to amusements and events.
January 1, 2004... AROUND THE state A SELECTIVE GUIDE TO AMUSEMENTS AND EVENTS JANUARY 2004 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY [ILLUSTRATION ...

Wow town.(A Great Weekend In Fort Worth)
January 1, 2004... It isn't often that you find world-famous museums down the street from a high school football stadium. But that's Fort Worth--it has something for everyone. And from January 22 through 25, the offerings are especially fine, beginning Thursday...

Pow!(Going Batty)
January 1, 2004... Funny that during The winter, when Austin's famous colony of Mexican free-tailed bats has migrated to Mexico, allusions to the chiropterans take wing. On January 8, the Alamo Drafthouse, in Austin, will screen the original 1966 Batman movie,...

Play date.(On Stage)
January 1, 2004... The last time I went to the theater? Well, that would have been for a production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--four years ago. I can hear the collective rolling over of dead playwrights in their graves upon an admission of such neglect....

The defense never rests.(Straight Talk)
January 1, 2004... Harvard law professor and criminal-defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, whose list of clients has included Patty Hearst, Michael Milken, Jim Bakker, Mike Tyson, and O. J. Simpson, will be speaking in Austin on January 15. There seem to be a...

Eternal flame: after the 1999 tragedy that killed twelve Aggies, Texas A&M wanted to extinguish its annual Bonfire. Good luck.(Letter From College Station)
January 1, 2004... THE OAK TREE, WHICH A FEW TEXAS A&M students had been chipping away at with an ax for hours, finally crashed to the ground. "That's the greatest sound in the world!" cried Mac Lampton, a jovial, ruddy-cheeked Aggie, over the cheers and...

Andy Roddick: the world's top tennis player on how he learned to play the game, who his heroes are--and whether he could beat the Williams sisters.(A Few Words With ...)
January 1, 2004... How did you learn to play tennis? By tagging along with my older brother John. He was a big reason I became interested in the sport, and he was one of my first coaches. He was always traveling to tournaments, and I would go with him. He was a...

Handsome Harry or the Gangster's True Confessions.
January 1, 2004... El Paso novelist James Carlos Blake loves crime and criminals of a certain vintage, so it's no surprise that he returns to the thirties with Handsome Harry (Morrow), historical fiction based on real-life partners-in-crime Harry Pierpont and...

Wheels of Fortune.
January 1, 2004... Now is now again for the Flatlanders, The Lubbock troika that released a comeback album in 2002, thirty years after its members, Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock, first disbanded. Wheels of Fortune (New West) is a pleasing set...

Marvelous Things.
January 1, 2004... You couldn't make this up. Four bored homeschooled Tyler siblings, ages 15 to 21, recruit a family friend and form a band. First they perform for customers at their parents' coffee shop. Then they open for Coldplay at a sold-out Madison Square...

Cut and Run.
January 1, 2004... Though not as unusual as 2002's Black Jack Point, Austinite Jeff Abbott's Cut and Run (Onyx) is another solid thriller. The ante has been upped-more crooks, more subplots, more shooting--in the third novel in his Edgar- and Anthony-nominated...

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.
January 1, 2004... It was 59 years ago that a group of U.S. Navy escort carriers, destroyer escorts, and destroyers took on the biggest and baddest of the Japanese fleet off the Philippine island of Samar in a pivotal World War II battle, but Austin writer James...

Westernaire.
January 1, 2004... Deed Ellum transplants Milton Mapes might call Austin home these days, but their full-length debut, Westernaire (Aspyr), roams the rugged Charles Starkweather High Plains. Think Neil Young and Crazy Horse in their heyday or the kind of reverent...

Don't look Yao: forget the gigantic Chinese import. This year, with a new coach, the Rockets are more than just an NBA sideshow.(Sports)
January 1, 2004... REMEMBER YAO MING? Well, with LeBron James taking over as the NBA's alpha male of endorsements, magazine covers, and SportsCenter, Yao is just a potentially great center on a potentially good team. And this year, that would seem to suit the...

Rio de Enero: if you visit San Antonio in January, when the river's touristy stretches are drained, you can still commune with the waterway's serene soul.(Travel)
January 1, 2004... TRAVEL WRITERS LOVE TO IGNORE the obvious. In the well-trampled territory of Texas, this can produce some pretty squirrelly results--like the national magazine that recently said the state's best beach was on Lake Travis. And yes, even I have...

Stock tips: at the Texas Culinary Academy, in Austin, I chopped vegetables, roasted bones--and got a taste of what it's like to be a chef.(Food)
January 1, 2004... AT SIX-TWENTY ON A TUESDAY morning last fall, jittery from too much coffee and not enough sleep, I stepped into a classroom kitchen at the Texas Culinary Academy, in Austin. Chef-instructor Gary Ackerman was directing half a dozen student...

What kind of a year was 2003? (The 2004 Blim Steer Awards!).
January 1, 2004... Strange, very strange. The president acted like a cowboy, the Cowboys acted like a football team, and Anna Nicole Smith didn't act up enough to be worthy of a Bum Steer award. Then again, maybe not so strange after all. The Astros...

Showdown at Waggoner Ranch: it's second only to the King Ranch in size, and second to none in its history of drink, divorce, and dissension. For years, its two feuding clans have agreed on only one thing: they want to break up their vast eight-hundred-square-mile spread and close this chapter of Texas history.
January 1, 2004... FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY the 520,000-acre Waggoner Ranch has been an inseparable part of the culture and fabric of the Red River country west of Wichita Falls--and of Texas itself. It is the nation's biggest ranch within the confines of a single...

The duke of Dunbar: last spring, when the Fort Worth school's head basketball coach won his fifth state championship and became the winningest coach in high school basketball history, most people figured he would finally walk away from the game. Most people don't know Robert Hughes.
January 1, 2004... JEFF MURIEL TOOK THE inbounds pass running and fired it to Dominique Williams, who dribbled across half-court with his right hand while he pulled up his sagging shorts with his left. He ran about fifteen feet before drilling a pass to the...

Blazing brushstrokes: as an innocent Texas girl, I was seduced by a dangerous world of sheriffs, six-shooters, and saloons. Today, old and jaded, I'm still addicted to paperback westerns--and it's the killer cover art that ropes me in.
January 1, 2004... BESIDES THE BIBLE and a dictionary, the bookshelves in my relatives' houses were sure to contain a few paperback westerns. And unlike the Scriptures and Webster's, they had colorful cover art--hard-eyed heroes, cowering cowgirls, leering...

McKenzie Mullins has cow: how does a thirteen-year-old read the minds of ornery steers, maneuver a thousand-pound steed, and become cutting's youngest phenom ever?
January 1, 2004... ONE OF THE FEW THINGS thirteen-year-old McKenzie Mullins likes more than squeezing a horse's nose is messing with its lower lip. "It's all about the lip," she told me one morning last summer, standing in her family's stables, in Gordon, which...

Restaurant guide: a selective guide to food and drink.
January 1, 2004... JANUARY 2004 Policies and Definitions The Restaurant Guide is a service to our readers. The magazine accepts no advertising or other consideration in exchange for a listing. Reviews are written by resident critics in the cities that we...

Z beat goes on.(Pat's Pick)
January 1, 2004... First there was Zolon. Now, just around the corner, comes Sister restaurant Zoe-Italian. Fort Worth is the lucky recipient of the first two in a projected series of dining places from the restless imaginations of chef-owner Zolon Wilkins III...

Cat's meow.(On The Road)
January 1, 2004... "Where the heck is that?" everybody said when I announced I was headed to Carol's at Cat Spring. Good question. Physically, the historic German community (population: 76) is some fifty miles west of Houston. Spiritually, it's in a world of its...

A moment of Epiphany.(Season's Eatings)
January 1, 2004... After you're done with turtledoves, maids-a-milking, and the other ten days of Christmas, you can celebrate el Dia de Reyes (Epiphany) on January 6, Commemorating the day the magi arrived bearing gifts for the infant Jesus, the Day of the Kings...

The wanderer: "why don't you get a job?" Some fraternity boys once asked Jerry Jeff Walker. Well, he has one: he's everyone's favorite Gypsy Songman.(The Last Roundup)
January 1, 2004... WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION of a few early serial killers, Jerry Jeff Walker was one of the first people in America to pioneer and popularize the three-word name. I've often maintained that if Susan Walker, Jerry Jeff's wife/manager (emphasis...