Illustration by Dale Stephanos.
January 2012
Table of Contents
Features
The 2012 Bum Steer AwardsIt was a year of avaricious Astros fans, brainless bank robbers, competence-free comptrollers, discourteous doctors, enraged exes, frisky Frisco-ites, greedy gram-toting grandmothers, hotheaded hand surgeons, ill-informed idiots, jammed-full Jaguars, knife-krazy Kimbroughs, lambasted Lufkinites, mean-spirited magazine articles, nervy narcotics users, obtuse O’Neals, profane pilots, quazy Quaids, romantically rejected receivers, surveilling Scientologists, tumescent team mascots, unprivate urinators, value-subtracted vouchers, wind-challenged windows, x-foliated x-hibitionists, yobbish YouTubers, and zealous Zanes. Hannah and AndrewOn October 3, 2006, a four-year-old boy named Andrew Burd died in a Corpus Christi hospital. The cause of death was determined to be salt poisoning, an extremely unusual occurrence. Even more shocking was what happened next: his foster mother, Hannah Overton, was found guilty of killing him. But could she really have done what the prosecutors say?
|
Come and Take a Look at Me NowAgainst all odds, Phil Collins has turned himself into a world-class Alamo buff who will happily talk your ear off about Santa Anna and Davy Crockett. Can you feel it coming in the Bexar tonight? Sketchy CharactersBefore cameras were allowed in courtrooms, artist Gary Myrick and his assortment of colored pencils provided Texas television audiences with a vivid look at the state’s high-profile legal proceedings against figures like T. Cullen Davis, Henry Lee Lucas, and Charles Harrelson.
|
Columns
Behind the LinesFed Up!Sure, Texas’s criminal justice system is tough. But as Fort Worth inmate Richard LaFuente could tell you, the federal criminal system is even tougher.
|
Denton CooleyTwo HeartsConducting the country’s first successful heart transplant and the world’s first artificial heart transplant made Denton Cooley a household name—and turned one of his closest colleagues against him. Letter From Cherokee CountyThe Bucks Stop HereEast Texas deer breeder Billy Powell flouted the laws against importing live whitetails, emailing photos of his illegally obtained animals to prospective customers. Then Texas Parks and Wildlife came calling. |
Reporter
The Horse’s MouthBeing a Navy SEAL SniperChris Kyle on using his first gun to shoot birds and squirrels, wondering if he would be able to kill someone, and feeling like a secret agent. Street SmartsMidlandThe oil-fueled boomtown may be running out of water, but there’s still plenty of shopping and culture to be found. |
Artist InterviewCraig FinnThe lyricist and lead singer for the Hold Steady on recording his first solo album in Austin, working with producer Mike McCarthy, and writing a song a day. Book ReviewThe Man Who Knows Too MuchCyberpunk pioneer Bruce Sterling speculates that the worst is yet to come. |
The Filter
Pat’s PickCampo |
Miscellany
ContributorsDale Stephanos, Lee Hancock, and John Spong. |
Editor’s LetterDecision 2012 |
Web Exclusives
The 2012 Bum Steer Awards on SteroidsSometimes you just have to see it (and hear it) to believe it. A Q&A With Pamela ColloffThe executive editor on writing about wrongful conviction cases, interviewing Hannah Overton in prison, and recognizing that things may not be as they seem. A Q&A With John SpongThe senior editor on why the Alamo is so important, how Fess Parker and Davy Crockett sparked a phenomenon in the fifties, and what Phil Collins is really like. The Drop Everything ListSara Hickman, Carolyn Wonderland and Guy Forsyth, a TubaMeisters Christmas, and the von Trapp family sings . . . Courtroom DramaSome of the biggest murder trials have happened in Texas, from proceedings against serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Charles Harrelson to housewives Darlie Routier and Candy Montgomery. Find out what TEXAS MONTHLY had to say about some of the most infamous Texans who were tried for murder. Peggy RaileyThe wife of a prominent Dallas minister, who was left for dead some 24 years ago in her garage, finally dies after spending years in a nursing home in Tyler. The Drop Everything ListWillie Nelson and Friends, Cowgirl Round-up and Showdeo, Black Eyed Pea and Cornbread Cookoff, and a New Year's Eve show in Emo's new digs . . . |
Norah Jones’s Country Music PlaylistTo celebrate For the Good Times, the new album by the Little Willies, Norah Jones's country cover band, the singer shares five of her favorite tracks by Texas songwriters. The Drop Everything ListRuby Jane Smith, Return of the Herd of Harpsichords, Sarah Jarosz, and the Texas A&M Singing Cadets . . . One Family, Two Very Different ArtistsGary Panter, famous for designing the bizarre and far-out Pee-wee's Playhouse set, went home to Sulphur Springs for the holidays and showed his mind-bending art in a local gallery alongside his father's traditional oil paintings. The Drop Everything ListSpindletop turns 100, Shawn Colvin performs with Lyle Lovett, the MLK, Jr. Symposium, and a Rick Riordan exhibition at the Witliff Collections . . . Don’t Mess With River OaksHouston has always prided itself as a city that barrels forward into the future, and operates without memory, regret or nostalgia. But when developers began messing with the historic River Oaks Shopping Center, Houstonians raised their hackles. Behind the Scenes at the Mavericks White House VisitBetween the overwhelming German press corps and the underwhelming holding pen for journalists covering the visit, the scene wasn't exactly what you would expect. The Drop Everything ListErykah Badu and the Cannabinoids, Four Funny Females, Clint Black, and Amtrak's Fortieth Anniversary . . . Did It Their WayAustin filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner prove that Sundance still embraces their type of idiosyncratic, shoestring-budgeted work. |
Multimedia
|
|
FACEBOOK
RSS
TUMBLR
TM
Read Later