Bum Steer Awards

In which we salute the folks who made Texas the bizarre, flagrant, preposterous, funny, and endearing place it was last year.

The Lord’s Work

Rusty Hardin is a prosecutor. Most of the time, his job is to put people in jail. This time, he wants a man dead.

by Jim Atkinson

The Saint of Falfurrias

Supplicants in the Valley worship at the shrine of faith healer Don Pedrito Jaramillo, more powerful than he was in life.

by Dick J. Reavis

Trust Me, Just Sign Here.

Whenever you buy or sell a house, hundreds of dollars of your money goes for something called title insurance. Title insurance is a great deal—for the title company.

by Paul Burka

Dear Parents of Dallas: Your Teenagers Are Out Hot-Rodding, Drinking Beer, and Flirting on Forest Lane Every Friday Night!

Some things never change.

Politics

The Party's Over

Time was when Texas Republicans had to stand united. But now their party's in power and there's rivalry in the ranks.

by Douglas Harlan

Behind the Lines

The perfect city.

by Gregory Curtis

Movies

Big Frogs, Small Pond

Screen greats Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn embarrass themsevles in the namby-pamby On Golden Pond. Ragtime is a clinker. Absence of Malice has prescence--Paul Newman's.

by James Wolcott

Church

Stumpers in the Pulpit

Potlicking in Houston churches is nothing new for a lot of black Baptist preachers. It just comes with the territory.

by William Martin

Art

Miss Van Buren Comes To Texas

An evocative American portrait is one of 75 masterpieces from the Phillips Collection now on display in Dallas. A photographic exhibit in Austin on family life covered just about everything but the family.

by Michael Ennis

Classical Music

The Best Classical Records of 1981

Bach and Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, Wagner and Weill, all put in appearances on last year’s top-notch classical albums.

by W. L. Taitte

Reporter

Texas Monthly Reporter

Football fever in Wink; political prognostication in Houston; gustatory grotesquerie in Austin; building bonanza in Fort Worth.

by Peter Applebome

Roar of the Crowd

Hearing the call of the Word, the wild, and the hogs.

Touts

Between a rock and an art place.

by Patricia Sharpe

Puzzle

Rolling stock.

State Secrets

Poor Bunker Hunt; hogging the airwaves; why the establishment likes Hightower; worries in the Hobby camp.

Edited by Paul Burka