A Desert Feast
How to make black bean soup, cactus cornbread, and other mouthwatering dishes from Melissa Guerra’s South Texas kitchen.
May 2006 Issue
Features
The Last Rustler
If he was asked what he did for a living, Roddy Dean Pippin would smile and say something about the cattle business. But he didn’t exactly buy and sell cows. He stole them. And right up until he was caught, he was as good as any such thief had ever
The Rookie
Having suffered through the ineptitudes of the Texas Rangers for nearly three and a half decades, having sat as solemn witness to their stumbling pretenses to be major league material, I assume that the hiring of a 28-year-old to run the team is yet another mistake. Jon Daniels, prove me
Columns
Walled Off
As a record number of demonstrators hit the streets this spring, one Texas border town was rolling the dice on a draconian method of dealing with illegal immigrants. And it’s working.
Patricia Kilday Hart
Field of Nightmares
A pernicious staph infection is targeting athletes young and old—and igniting a debate over the hazards of artificial turf.
Oscar Casares
Pet Project
My dog, Flaco, sleeps on a bed from Pottery Barn, gets three walks a day, and very nearly had his teeth cleaned for the princely sum of $208. What would my father say?
Sarah Bird
The Furs Were Flying
There is a world where the kings of small African countries send cases of Dom Pérignon as hostess gifts, where you get to choose between the white-striped chinchilla and the violet beaver shearling poncho. Who let me in?
Reporter
Music Review
Springtime Can Kill You
Those who fancy JOLIE HOLLAND a bit of an odd ducklet’s just say she doesn’t exactly ooze onstage charisma—won’t change their minds with her third album, SPRINGTIME CAN KILL YOU (Anti). The Houston-born vocalist warbles in a slurry vibrato that can tend to grate. Or enchant. There’s something about the
Music Review
“Nothing Serious” and “Distractions”
One album just wasn’t enough. NOTHING SERIOUS (Verve), the first of two simultaneous releases from trumpeter Roy Hargrove, is his finest straight-up jazz outing in years. Shedding the strained concepts of his recent recordings (strings, Cuban music), Hargrove and his no-star quintet lay down occasionally ferocious hard bop. He contributes
Music Review
The Boxing Mirror
It all came to a halt one Arizona night in 2002. ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO had led an impressive, if messy, rock and roll life, with a résumé that included Rank and File, the True Believers, and a respected solo career. Yet years of ignoring a hepatitis C diagnosis finally caught up
Music Review
An interview with Jon Dee Graham
An interview with Jon Dee GrahamAfter being in Austin’s spotlight last year, when his son was diagnosed with a rare degenerative hip disease (as with Escovedo, the city’s music community rolled out in support), Graham has just released his fifth album, FULL (Freedom).Where do things stand with your son? How
Book Review
Standing Eight
At age 33, Austinite Jesus “El Matador” Chavez is the champ: He currently holds the International Boxing Federation’s lightweight title. But his career has been anything but charmed. In STANDING EIGHT, journalist ADAM PITLUK tracks Chavez (born Gabriel Sandoval in Hidalgo del Parral, Mexico) through a life of misadventure: an
Book Review
Riley’s Fire
Crafting a story about a seven-year-old burn victim is a risky move given the very good chances your novel will career into the maudlin and the morbid. Nevertheless, El Pasoan LEE MERRILL BYRD gives us RILEY’S FIRE and its rambunctious kid protagonist, Riley Martin, whose curiosity about matches and gasoline
Book Review
Riding with John Wayne
RIDING WITH JOHN WAYNE has a split personality. AARON LATHAM’s latest novel plays at being a murder mystery, but at heart it’s a gentle satire drawing laughs from that wellspring of excess: Hollywood. Latham drags his legendary Goodnight clan (familiar from Code of the West and The Cowboy With the
Book Review
An interview with Keith Graves
An interview with Keith GravesThe award-winning Austinite has just published his seventh kids’ book, The Unexpectedly Bad Hair of Barcelona Smith. Graves’s words are whimsical; his illustrations are bold and surreal enough to intrigue the grown-ups in the house.While you’re writing and drawing, do you have a mental image of
Lyle Lovett
“It’s immensely gratifying to work with people who are trying to do their best at what they do toward a common end. And whether it’s an arrangement or the performance of a single song, I just love the feeling of watching three or four or sixteen people all working together.”
Web
Web Exclusive
On the Border
Executive editor S. C. Gwynne on going to Eagle Pass and writing about illegal immigration.
Texas Tidbits
Texas Tidbits
More than 670,000 people call Austin home. But that’s not including the ghosts.
Texas History 101
As governor, Miriam “Ma” Ferguson pardoned as many as one hundred people a month, but what’s really interesting is how she got to be the first female elected to that office.
Happy Trails
Happy Trails
After spending a day exploring Boerne, just outside San Antonio, I realized there is a lot to do in this not-so-sleepy town.
Pat's Pick
Amuse
“EXCUSE ME, WAITER. Knowing that life is short, we’d like to eat dessert first. I’ll have the funnel cake, and my friend wants the s’mores. After that, we’ll split the banana split and the fudge brownies. And—wait, we’re not through, come back—bring us some of those PB&J lollipops.”I know, I
Web Exclusive
Road Food
Big John Youk, a 27-year veteran of the NASCAR pits and the author of Big John’s Speedway Grill, talks about cooking, cars, and ’cue.
Web Exclusive
Waiting for Butterflies
Creative director Scott Dadich talks about contributing photographer Dan Winters’s photo essay on lepidopterans.
Web Exclusive
Chasing Cattle Thieves
Executive editor Skip Hollandsworth talks about investigator Scott Williamson, the man who caught cattle rustler Roddy Dean Pippin.
Web Exclusive
Water Sports
Almost every Wednesday evening, the Austin Aquabats wear helmets and padded life jackets, paddle furiously, and call their own fouls during each twenty-minute game of canoe polo.
Web Exclusive
DeLay Tactics
Senior executive editor Paul Burka on reporting one of the country’s biggest political stories: the self-destruction of Tom DeLay.
Miscellany
Editor's Letter
Exit, Stage Right
AS IT HAPPENS, we had already planned a May cover on Tom DeLay—on his political difficulties, on his ethical problems, on the ongoing investigation by Travis County DA Ronnie Earle into various alleged campaign finance shenanigans—when the defanged House majority leader announced he was withdrawing from his reelection race and
Around the State
Around the State
Jordan’s PickThe Grand Prix HoustonIT’S IRONIC that the month’s speediest happening is in the city of perpetual gridlock. After a five-year hiatus, the Grand Prix of Houston is back—and no amount of bumper fatigue can detract from the coup. If you’re envisioning a carnivalesque affair with an outrageous mullet quota,
Roar of the Crowd
War Stories
Thank you for printing names, faces, and information in “Fallen Heroes” [March 2006]. As many others probably did with the issue, I flipped through the pages and only glanced at the pictures. Then I read “Heartbreak High” [March 2006] and ended up feeling like a selfish, self-centered person. I
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