March 2010 Contributors
Nate Blakeslee Photograph by Peter Yang The idea of profiling radio host Alex Jones has been kicking around the office for a while, but it took shape only as the nation’s political climate began to...
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DeLayed Reaction
After picking up the mail and happily opening Christmas cards, I looked down and saw Tom DeLay on the cover of texas monthly [January 2010]. I almost threw up. But as I read that it was time for the...
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Cover Me
Willie’s done it seven times. So has George W. Bush. Ross Perot and Troy Aikman have each done it four times. Kinky Friedman has done it three times (twice dressed as a woman). Lance Armstrong, Ann...
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New and Noteworthy
Tillman’s RoadhouseFort Worth Residential and commercial designer Rob Dailey has let loose his log-cabin chic on this splendiferous restaurant in the new West Seventh development. Like its predecessor...
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Branch Water Tavern
I love it when my expectations are foiled. A few weeks ago I walked into four-month-old Branch Water Tavern and took a look around. In every direction, I saw brown, brown, brown—a sea of predictable,...
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Augie Meyers
The 69-year-old San Antonio keyboardist used his Vox organ to bridge the gap between sixties psychedelia and Tex-Mex and gave the Sir Douglas Quintet its signature sound. In 1990 he and his Quintet...
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Bare Knuckle
Contemporary blues is a bit of a wasteland, yet those chanting the “blues is dead” mantra should check out Guitar Shorty. Though his time in the state was brief, the seventy-year-old Houston-born,...
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Be Brave
Their 2009 debut album was the ultimate in hipster fodder, but Austin’s the Strange Boys instantly stood out from the garage-rock-revivalist hordes. Sure, they and their peers all dug the same sixties...
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A Q&A with Robert Perkinson
In Texas Tough, the Yale-trained historian looks at the explosion in modern America’s prison population. He finds the Texas penal system setting the pace in both the number of prisoners and the harsh...
View ArticlePsychic Friends Network
I’m looking for meaning. I need an explanation for what my life has been and I want road maps for the future so I pay attention to dreams and whatever messages come through other sources. I want it all...
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Next
James Hynes’s unsettling fifth novel, Next, captures eight hours in the life of “melancholy middle-aged” Kevin Quinn as he sneaks away from Ann Arbor to Austin for a clandestine job interview. Quinn is...
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Action Heroes
For the past two decades, virtually all the cinematic energy in Texas has been centered in Austin. Indie darlings such as Robert Rodriguez and Richard Linklater continue to call the city home. The...
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Michael Hsu’s Garage
With his industrial-sleek aesthetic, architect Michael Hsu has designed some of the most buzzed-about buildings in Austin. His eponymous firm created Lance Armstrong’s bike shop, Mellow Johnny’s;...
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Andrew R. Espinosa Jr., Process Server
Espinosa, a lifetime Houstonian, has been serving legal papers—summonses, subpoenas, complaints, writs—to people facing court action for the past sixteen years. He is an owner and the director of civil...
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Out and About
Almost immediately after Annise Parker won the Houston mayor’s race last December, a new phrase started cropping up in the local lexicon of one-upmanship. “Kathy’s done my taxes for years,” I heard a...
View ArticleCenter of Gravity
By the time you read these words, early voting in the March 2 primaries will be under way. The race for the Republican nomination for governor, involving incumbent Rick Perry, United States senator Kay...
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Hook’d
Tuesday, January 5, 7:05 a.m.: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport at the crack of dawn is typically a quiet place, but not so today. Two full days before the Longhorns play for the BCS National...
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The Bucket List
Life is too short not to live it in Texas. But recently we asked ourselves an uncomfortable question: If we had only one year left on earth, what would we do in the Lone Star State? A spirited...
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Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic
In 1929 Dallas teenager Virginia Thompson fell into a fevered sleep for 180 days. Eighty years later that familial legend helped inspire granddaughter Molly Caldwell Crosby’s book Asleep, an...
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Being a Rodeo Cowboy
NAME: Trevor Brazile | AGE: 33 | HOME: Decatur | QUALIFICATIONS: Seven-time all-around world champion in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, an achievement shared only by bull rider Ty Murray /...
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How to Tie a Texas Rig
Modern-day bass fishing owes its enormous popularity to two game-changing events. First, in 1949, Nick Creme rocked the angler community with the creation of the plastic bait worm. Roughly ten years...
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Alex Jones Is About To Explode
It was the fourth and final hour of The Alex Jones Show, the most popular conspiracy talk radio program in the country, and everybody in the Austin studio was getting a little weary. As they do six...
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The Texanist: Is It Real Tex-Mex if It’s Served With Black Beans?
Q: I’m perplexed about the recent black bean craze. Growing up, we had refried, pinto, or ranch beans with our Mexican food, but now it seems everyone is flocking to the black bean. Maybe it’s my...
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Two Burials
For Grandmother, it was always, “Next year, we’ll move him to Laredo.”When my abuelo Leonides Lopez died, in July 1935, his expeditious summer burial in Tío Jose’s family plot in Cotulla was meant to...
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Three Chords and A Station Wagon
On February 9, 1964, Paul McCartney counted off “All My Loving” on the Ed Sullivan Show and the whole free world freaked out. That night 73 million people watched the Beatles, four spectacularly young,...
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