Texas Monthly articles from May 2008

Texas Monthly archives from May 2008

Almost blue: is Texas about to be a Democratic state again? The fact that we're even asking the question is a sign of how weird and unpredictable this election year has been.(Behind the Lines)
May 1, 2008... Is Texas still a red state? I never thought I'd be posing that question as early as 2008, but the strength of the Democratic vote in the March 4 primary was so unexpected, so complete a departure from our re cent history, that the numbers are...

Twist of faith.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2008... With so great a host of believers around Matt and Karl Baker, it is tragic that no one saw the serious pain Karl felt or tried to seek professional help for her ["The Valley of the Shadow of Death," March 2008]. It's also tragic that Matt and...

Sad sack.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2008... You have to feel sad for folks like Mike Flynt ["Untitled Mike Flynt Project," March 2008]. I have the utmost respect for his desire to go back to right a wrong, but the purgatory he put himself through, in my estimation, has all been for...

Chairman of the boards.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2008... The Wyatt McSpadden photo of the Stampede Dance Hall, in Big Spring, opened up a lovely conversation with my 81-year-old dad, Burl Dennis, who still lives in Big Spring ["Wyatt's World," March 2008]. My grandpa Floyd Dennis was good...

Home economics.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2008... Antonya Nelson goes to great lengths to describe all the nice things she did for her housekeeper and her housekeeper's family, on which she kept very careful score--the limo ride for her children, the help with government forms, and so on ["The...

Holy smokes!(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2008... Thank God Kinky's back ["Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," March 2008]! With due respect to Sarah Bird, let her spread her wings on another page. Give us the wire-haired sage. Jimmy "K.T." Kessler GALVESTON Why isn't Kinky Friedman...

Say hey Willie.(Editor's Letter)(Willie Nelson)(Editorial)
May 1, 2008... To the famously short list of things that are certain in life--death and taxes--you can confidently add another: Willie Nelson sells copies of TEXAS MONTHLY. The iconic singer, golfer, actor, bus rider, weed smoker, and all-around good guy has...

A dark visionary.(In the Chute by Jordan Breal: 5/16 THROCKMORTON'S ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTER FEST 5/24 SAMUEL COLT EXHIBIT THRU 6/22 JOHN ALEXANDER RETROSPECTIVE)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ART, LIKE POLITICS, is polarizing by nature. Although there are plenty of universally likable artists--Monet and his water lilies come to mind--the vast majority tend to elicit diametrically opposed reactions. John...

Have a ball.(In the Chute by Jordan Breal: 5/16 THROCKMORTON'S ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTER FEST 5/24 SAMUEL COLT EXHIBIT THRU 6/22 JOHN ALEXANDER RETROSPECTIVE)(calf fries)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EVERYONE REMEMBERS his first time. The nerves. The rush. That heady mix of excitement and trepidation. Folks may do the deed for a variety of reasons (to scratch an itch, to conquer a fear) and with varied results...

Gunplay.(In the Chute by Jordan Breal: 5/16 THROCKMORTON'S ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTER FEST 5/24 SAMUEL COLT EXHIBIT THRU 6/22 JOHN ALEXANDER RETROSPECTIVE)(Samuel Colt: Arms, Art, and Invention)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Gunplay NOT TO OVERSTATE the facts, but Texas may have had more to do with Samuel Colt's success than his Yankee upbringing did. Keep that in mind as you peruse "Samuel Colt: Arms, Art, and Invention," an...

Starting a business.(The Horse's Mouth: EVERYTHING I COULD EVER TELL YOU ABOUT ...)(Interview)
May 1, 2008... NAME: Clayton Christopher AGE: 35 HOMETOWN: Beaumont QUALIFICATIONS: Founded Sweet Leaf Tea Company in 1998 with $10,000 and a recipe from his grandmother / Now markets ten flavors of bottled iced tea in all fifty states and has doubled sales...

Sportswriter high: how my alma mater conquered New York in the sixties.(The Cheap Seats: BRYAN CURTIS POPS OFF ABOUT SPORTS)
May 1, 2008... New York City, 1964. Our heroes, Dan Jenkins and Bud Shrake, are waiting for the Time-Life coffee cart to make its morning trek through the offices of Sports Illustrated. It was only a few hours ago that Dan and Bud, sportswriters...

Abby McAfee Daigle, 25 wedding planner.(The Working Life: STORIES FROM THE 9 TO 5)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I've been working at Barr Mansion since they would let me. I started when I was just tiny and my dad would give me a penny for every cigarette butt I picked up off the ground after parties. Then, when I was still...

Gruene Hall.
May 1, 2008... Gruene Hall Gruene | October 14, 2007 Since Jesus is said to have gotten along well with tax collectors, loose women, winebibbers, and gourmets (I'm pretty sure "glutton" is an incorrect translation), I figured it was permissible to...

42: how to play the national game of Texas.(The Manual: WHAT EVERY TEXAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ...)
May 1, 2008... About 120 years ago, two boys from Trapps Springs (now Garner) were caught in a forbidden pastime: playing cards. Their parents burned the offending deck and whipped the disobedient youngsters, but this led William Thomas and Walter Earl to...

Urbane cowboy: Julian Schnabel's movies are frontier tales for a metrosexual age.
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The most important and original Texas filmmaker to have emerged over the past decade does not hail from Texas. He speaks with a New York accent. He lives in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, in a bright pink high-rise...

One Hell of a Ride.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Not bad for 75 years. It would take most artists two lifetimes to catch up to the output of wildly prolific WILLIE NELSON, and even then it's inconceivable that anyone would leave a greater legacy. At first glance,...

Directions to See a Ghost.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In case you haven't been paying much attention, psychedelic rock is once again coming on like an acid flashback. Most new bands mining this bygone era do so with a painful degree of transparency and come off sounding...

Troubadour.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] He's dominated the field for so long that it's easy to forget there was a time in country music before GEORGE STRAIT. He has more number one singles than George Jones, Hank Williams, or Ray Price--in fact, he has...

Ed Jurdi & Gordy Quist.(Previews+Reviews: Music: JEFF MCCORD ON THE MONTHS NEW RELEASES)(Interview)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Together with Colin Brooks, they make up the triumvirate of songwriters who front Austin" s Band of Heathens. What began as a loose collaboration of jam buddies has led to two live releases, Best New Band honors at the 2007 Austin Music Awards,...

Holy Moly.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2008... Word is that BEN REHDER might drop the curtain on his snarky Blanco County mystery series with HOLY MOLY. The sixth novel featuring square-jawed Johnson City game warden John Marlin. If so, the Austinite goes out on a high note with this...

The Triumph of Caesar.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2008... Just ten pages into THE TRIUMPH OF CAESAR, I had learned more Roman history from STEVEN SAYLOR than from all my high school and college professors combined. "Haruspicy was the Etruscan science of divination." "Cato [was] leader of the...

Bill Bishop.(Interview)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... In The Big Sort, the Austin political blogger and Pulitzer finalist for editorial writing addresses America's tendency to segment itself into tiny, like-minded groups (a phenomenon he calls "clustering"). How did the "big sort" notion come...

Take me to the river: the joys of (barely) making a splash on the Colorado.(Go: SUZY BANKS HITS THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] My recent canoe trip on the Colorado River at Columbus was so effortless it seemed more of a thought than an action. For one thing, right at the put-in sat Howell Canoe Livery, whose cheerful proprietor outfitted me...

While you're in the neighborhood.(Columbus, Texas)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... The oak-filled town of Columbus, settled by a group of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred, oozes history--despite the fact that Houston torched it to the ground during his retreat. More than 110 historical markers introduce you to a slew of...

Twin wells: chapter five: the emerald mule.(Texquisite Corpse: A STORY IN TWELVE PARTS AND TWELVE VOICES)(Short story)
May 1, 2008... The only thing more jacked up than the enormous emerald pendant in Joe Newby's right hand was the fact that he was completely naked from the waist down. Wherever Newby had come from, he had acquired a priceless gemstone and lost his pants and...

Margaret Spellings.(Texas Monthly Talks: EVAN SMITH SITS DOWN WITH ...)(Interview)
May 1, 2008... So here we are in the middle of a presidential campaign, and the Democratic and Republican candidates have been talking about health care and the economy and Iraq. They've been talking about everything in the world, it seems, except education....

No place like home: in the now infamous Dallas suburb, redevelopment is king, the lawns are immaculate, and illegal immigrants are no longer welcome.(Letter From Farmers Branch)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Last year Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb of some 26,500 people, erected a giant American flag on the edge of town, in the middle of a few acres of mowed grass. "You need a little imagination to see what this is...

Girl, interrupted: almost two years after brutally stabbing a teenage gangbanger, Ashley Benton is determined to reclaim her life. But her problems are not over yet.(Letter From Houston)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ashley Benton, Houston's most famous teenage killer, asks that we not take her photograph. It is February, and since her trial ended last summer, she has let her hair grow longer, and she has lost some weight. In a...

"Willie's God! Willie's God! We love Willie!".(Cover story)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SO MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT HIM in the past 75 years (a good chunk of it in TEXAS MONTHLY) that we wondered if there was anything left to say. Which is why we called the people who know him best: the friends and...

Faith, hope, & chastity: Texas receives more federal funding for abstinence education than any other state--and yet we still have the highest teen birthrate in the country. Is there any good way to teach your kids about sex?
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Monica IS SEVENTEEN YEARS old. When I met her in January, she was seven I months pregnant with her second child. Her fifteen-month-old girl, Anevaeh, wandered through the room with a purple pacifier in her mouth....

Remains of the day: the Confederacy lives on, and the greatest shortstop ever is waiting to be discovered.
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF THE TEXAS STATE CEMETERY, IN a plot far removed from the other graves, rest the remains of Antonio Briones, a Mexican immigrant who fought on the Union side during the Civil War. Briones...

This land is his land: Jerry Patterson is a concealed weapon-carrying tobacco-dipping, [canvas-death-trap-flying] maverick whose management of the Christmas Mountains has ticked off everyone from Rick Perry to the Sierra Club. Not that he cares.(Interview)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] IT is a bone-chilling day in late January, with stinging 20-knot winds, gunmetal-gray skies, and temperatures hovering in the low 30's. I am strapped into the unheated backseat of a single-engine Citabria airplane...

Natural beauties.(roses)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I NEVER THINK OF AN IRIS or a daisy as a "he" or a "she." Yet I've never considered old-fashioned roses as anything else. It isn't just their lush blossoms, delicate hues, and intoxicating fragrance that seduce me,...

Bolla: Dallas.(PAT'S PICK)(Texas)(Restaurant review)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] YOU CAN TELL WHICH PEOPLE in the dining room remember the Stoneleigh of yore. They're the ones craning their necks and twisting in their chairs to gawk at the hotel's astonishing-transformation. Before it closed late...

Bistro Don Camillo: Houston.(NEW + NOTEWORTHY)(Texas)(Restaurant review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... The Guy family has been Houston's French restaurant connection for years. (The names Chez Georges, alas defunct, and Bistro Provence will resonate with Francophiles.) Now they have ventured further afield and opened Bistro Don Camillo, brimming...

August E's: Fredericksburg.(NEW + NOTEWORTHY)(San Antonio, Texas)(Restaurant review)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What a difference a move makes. When August E's set up shop in a log building in 2004, the mood of the ambitious restaurant was all about the heritage of old Fredericksburg. But ever since it slipped into modern digs...

The Filter: Dining: our favorite restaurants, bistros, cafes, and joints.(Restaurant review)
May 1, 2008... POLICIES AND DEFINITIONS The Filter : Dining 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 list and are...

The four questions: an epistle to Texas Christians.(ARE YOU AMERICAN?)
May 1, 2008... Many people may not realize it, but the Last Supper was a Jewish Passover service known as a seder. Traditionally, the youngest person at the seder asks the Four Questions, the first of which is "Why is this night different from all other...