Feature
Ron White Gets the Last Laugh
Thanks to the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, he’s richer than all get-out, and you’re not.
December 2006 Issue
Features
“You Don’t Want to Know What We Do After Dark”
The young, tattooed men who are members of the Southwest Cholos, La Primera, La Tercera Crips, Somos Pocos Pero Locos, Mara Salvatrucha, and other Houston gangs are vicious career criminals who regularly rob innocent people in some of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. They steal cars and break into businesses.
Feature
Eating A Dead Horse
Even if you’ve never dined on the delicious remains of a noble steed, you probably have an opinion on whether the state’s two slaughterhouses should remain open. Boone Pickens does. And Charlie Stenholm. And Bo Derek. Not to mention the many traders and “killer buyers” for whom business is business.
Feature
The Best Public Schools
A ranking of 574 elementary, middle, and high schools that really make the grade.
Feature
Spurs of the Moment
These practical accessories of the cowboy lifestyle are some of the world’s most-sought-after Western collectibles—and every pair has a story.
Pasó por Aquí
José Cisneros, the legendary illustrator of the Spanish Southwest, is 96, almost blind, and nearly deaf. And, of course, he has no plans to put down his pen.
Columns
Letter From Houston
Physician, Heal Thyself
When Sam Hassenbusch was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer, the only saving grace was his own history of treating the very same affliction.
Reporter
Book Review
The Amazing Faith of Texas
Even cynics can find inspiration in THE AMAZING FAITH OF TEXAS, a surprisingly affecting survey of fifty Texans and their beliefs from GSD&M ad agency honcho ROY SPENCE. With brief interviews by Mike Blair and telling portraits by Randal Ford, these microbiographies delve into the creeds of Baptists, Buddhists, Baha’is,
Music Review
The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions and Fearless Leader
Detractors of Dallas’s RED GARLAND disdained him as a “cocktail pianist” and claimed he made it into Miles Davis’s first classic quintet (from 1955 to 1957) only because of a stylistic similarity to Davis obsession Ahmad Jamal. Yet he proved the perfect accompanist for not just the legendary trumpeter but
Music Review
Nashville Rebel
Like his compatriot “outlaw” Willie Nelson, WAYLON JENNINGS had already done a lot of solid work in Music City before reaching his breaking point, one set off by an accumulation of road dates, divorces, unpaid bills, and pep pills. So NASHVILLE REBEL (RCA/Legacy), a beautifully annotated four-CD retrospective, is a
Music Review
Rockin’ Bones: 1950s Punk & Rockabilly
ROCKIN’ BONES: 1950S PUNK & ROCKABILLY (Rhino), a reverb-drenched four-CD set of blistering guitar abandon, establishes this Eisenhower-era crew of JDs as the original punk rockers. Assembled with the same fanaticism as Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets, 101 (!) tracks roll by, many rescued from undeserved obscurity. You’ve heard Texans Buddy Holly,
Music Review
The Complete Atlantic Sessions
The liner notes pin it down to a single moment: a 1972 George McGovern rally in Austin’s Zilker Park, when new-to-town country singer WILLIE NELSON found himself on the bill with a lot of hippie rock bands. Unintimidated, Nelson forged ahead with the show, and a movement was born. This
Book Review
Between Heaven and Texas
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND TEXAS is dazzling. In a collection of meticulous prints, WYMAN MEINZER (who was proclaimed official state photographer in 1997 by then-governor George W. Bush) captures the limitless permutations of the Lone Star sky, from the serenity of cottony cumulus puffs to the bruising purple of a stormy
Book Review
Weeping Mary
Black-and-white is more than the chosen medium in WEEPING MARY, a photo essay about the tiny Texas town with this unusual name by Texas Monthly contributing photographer O. RUFUS LOVETT. It’s also the unmentioned divide embodied by a white lensman’s documenting of a poor and predominantly black community. Lovett’s fine
Book Review
La Vida Brinca
If simplicity can be the hallmark of genius, BILL WITTLIFF earns a gold seal for the sepia-toned photos in La Vida Brinca (“Life Jumps”). The Austinite, who is probably better known as the screenwriter of Lonesome Dove and The Perfect Storm than as a photographer, has turned a decade-long fascination
Forest Whitaker
“What does it say about us as humans beings when we listen to leaders who lie to us and, as a result, thousands of people are killed?”
Web
Pat's Pick
Central 214
I don’t know about you, but every time I go out to eat, I say a little prayer to the kitchen gods: “Oh please, oh please, oh please, let there be something fabulous on the menu tonight.” Usually, however, the kitchen gods are out having a smoke in the alley
Recipe
Crab Cakes
1 pound fresh jumbo lump crab 1 cup mayo 2 tablespoons old bay 1/2 red pepper, roasted 1 teaspoon roasted garlic 2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives salt and pepper to taste 2 ounces extra virgin olive oilNote: It is important to use the very
Books That Cook
Books That Cook
Organized by decade (1944—2000), this retro-styled cookbook created by the people at Texas Co-op Power magazine celebrates the combination of food and electricity. A preface written by Sandy Cohen, the curator of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, explains that by the mid-forties, electricity had finally reached most homes
Web Exclusive
Freddy Boy
Friends, admirers, and Texas musicians such as Augie Meyers and Ray Benson say good-bye to music legend and San Benito’s favorite son, Freddy Fender, who died October 14, 2006.
Web Exclusive
The Good Doctor
Writer-at-large Jan Reid on interviewing neurosurgeon Sam Hassenbusch, who was diagnosed with the same kind of cancer he had been treating for years.
Web Exclusive
Horse Sense
Senior editor Karen Olsson talks about horse slaughter—watching the deed, talking to advocates, and writing about the contentious issue.
Miscellany
Around the State
Around the State
Jordan’s PickVictorian Christmas Train Ride PalestineTHERE YOU ARE, ALL BUNDLED UP, climbing aboard the Victorian Christmas Train Ride in East Texas with your loved ones. The antique locomotive picks up steam as you sip hot cider and warble, uninhibitedly, your favorite carols. With the verdant foliage of the Piney Woods
Editor's Letter
Now Serving
THERE’S A CONTROVERSIAL WAR GOING ON, the aftermath of an election to mop up, the stock market rising, the price of oil falling, famine, pestilence—and our December cover story is about tacos? You bet. For as long as there’s been a Texas Monthly, the very best service journalism has had
Roar of the Crowd
Walk This Way
I HAVE TO PROTEST your exclusion of what I consider one of the most magnificently beautiful areas of Texas from your “Take a Hike” article: the Panhandle [October 2006]. My father grew up in Vega, the county seat of Oldham County, 35 miles west of Amarillo. Anyone but a
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