We all fit into one cab. The driver charged us $20 for the six-mile drive from Nuevo Laredo to the legal brothel hood, Boystown, which was slightly less than we had spent on three hotel rooms for the night. They used to have horse racing in Nuevo Laredo, just across the border into Mexico and […]
By Michael Corcoran This is from the Teague (Texas) Chronicle from Nov. 8, 1907. Washington Phillips, whose songs have been covered but never bettered by Ry Cooder, Mavis Staples, Phish, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and more, was 27 at the time. He didn’t make his first recordings until he was 47. If Columbia Records didn’t send […]
By Michael Corcoran The live music venues. That’s the key component to the whole thing. Musicians need audiences and whatever money they can get. But running a live music club in Austin doesn’t make financial sense. Everybody wants to be on the guest list and hosting bands is expensive, with the extra equipment and personnel […]
Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert was recently fined $75,000 for using the ghetto slang term “no homo,” which is what hip-hop fans say when words come out of their mouths that make them sound gay, like “LeBron stretched me out.” It’s the “That’s what she said” for guys who secretly want to give Michael Jordan […]
By Michael Corcoran On this particular Friday night, Austin singer/songwriter/bandleader Bob Schneider has a big show in Dallas at the House of Blues, where about 1,000 fans have bought tickets to dance and sing along to such songs as “40 Dogs (Romeo and Juliet)” and “Tarantula” that sound written by two different people. It is […]
The waitress at Hyde Park Bar & Grill says she likes Bill Carter’s big silver skull ring. It’s from the set of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” Carter says. “The first one. It was made for my friend, but he wanted one with a yellow bandanna and ruby eyes, so he gave this one to me.” […]
(From June 2009) Michael Jackson dead at 50. Michael Jackson dead. The words didn’t look right. When I first heard the news Thursday afternoon, my reaction surprised me. The first word in my mind: finally. At last the boy who never wanted to grow up doesn’t have to anymore. There would be no more charges […]
The sailors and soldiers called it “Shit Street.” During Vietnam and a few years after, Hotel Street in Honolulu’s Chinatown was the Broadway of the skankiest red light district in the country. Haven’t been to them all, but can still say that with authority. There were live sex shows, transvestite revues, gypsy fortuneswindlers and whorehouses […]
In March 2003, as American troops were poised to invade Iraq, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks decided to make a statement against President Bush that delighted the audience in England. But when the news was picked up in the States, the Chicks’ skyrocket to the top hit a wall. Suddenly, they lost a huge […]
(From November 2008) If you want to make President-elect Barack Obama smile about something that has nothing to do with Tuesday’s election, ask him if he remembers the address of Lex Brodie’s flagship tire shop in Honolulu. He should immediately answer “701 Queen Street,” no matter how much other stuff has filled his mind since […]
