Reign of Terroir
A decade and a half after I wrote about the poor quality of Texas wines for this magazine, Lone Star vintners are starting to turn heads.
Profile
January 20, 2013
TV or Not TV?
He’s no Seinfeld. He’s not even Jeff Foxworthy. But Galveston native Bill Engvall is a successful stand-up comic, and one day, just maybe, he’ll get a sitcom of his own.
Books
January 20, 2013
King of Diamonds
Larry L. King is at work on a novel about minor league baseball in Texas in the fifties. Breaking Balls is a fictionalized account of his experiences covering the “miserable 144-game schedule” of the Midland Indians as a $55-a-week reporter for the Midland Reporter-Telegram in 1951. “I went to all
Travel & Outdoors
January 20, 2013
Great Escapes
From a boutique hotel in hip South Austin to a bed-and-breakfast across the Mexican border, from fly fishing on the Llano River to bathing in the Chinati Hot Springs, 33 getaways the guidebooks don’t tell you about, courtesy of our intrepid staff of weekend warriors.
Sports
January 20, 2013
Snap Decision
Why Troy Aikman shouldn't retire.
Sports
January 20, 2013
Sports
Hot hurdling in Giddings, super six-man football in Gordon: Ten towns that got game.
Eat My Words
August 22, 2011
Secrets of the (Texas) Sommeliers
(Editor's Note: This guest post about last week's Texas Sommelier Conference comes from San Francisco food, wine and spirits writer Jordan Mackay, a James Beard Award-winning author for his 2010 book with Rajat Parr, "Secrets of the Sommeliers." But we
Sports
February 1, 2001
Drew Carries On
Sixteen years after a car crash ended his football career, former Cowboys star Drew Pearson is a team player againin the XFL.
Basketball Diary
February 1, 2001
Basketball Diary
This is the ninth and final installment of a series of updates on the Dallas Mavericks season.
Basketball Diary
January 1, 2001
The Basketball Diary
Thursday, January 18, 2001After enduring a three-game losing streak—with two of the three coming at home—the Mavs bounced back Wednesday night with a big win at Charlotte. Notching the win took a three-pointer from Howard Eisley, a name we have not heard as much as we expected to this year,
Web Exclusive
December 1, 2000
The Basketball Diary
Assisitant editor Jordan Mackay charts the Dallas Mavericks season - visit every week for updates and commentary.
Sports
December 1, 2000
On the Rebound
The Dallas Mavericks have a new owner and a new attitude, but they have no real plan to make themselves the kings of the court. I do.
Sports
November 1, 2000
West Texas Tornado
Cedric Benson of the Midland Lee Rebels has a cause: He may just be the greatest running back in Texas 5A history.
Web Exclusive
September 30, 2000
Your questions on Texas wine answered
Test assistant editor Jordan Mackay's knowledge of Texas winehis piece, "Sour Grapes," about the state of the Texas wine industry, ran in this issue.
Food and Drink
September 30, 2000
Sour Grapes
For nearly 25 years the state's wineries have struggled to mature. Will Texas wines ever go well with anything?
Feature
August 31, 2000
Film Bonnie Curtis
Producing results.
Reporter
August 31, 2000
Horse Play
Can SMU football come back from the dead by building a $56 million stadium?
The List
July 31, 2000
Hut, Hut, Pay Hike!
Texas high school coaches rush ahead for the big bucks.
Feature
April 30, 2000
Musical Marginalia
The places, people and stories behind Texas music.
Music
April 30, 2000
Tomorrow People
Meet the senior class of what might be called Texas Music U. four up-and-coming acts that should graduate to the big time.
Sports
April 1, 2000
Straight Shooter
Rashard Lewis may have left his Texas hometown for the NBA at a frighteningly young age, but he's no Leon Smith.
Sports
March 1, 2000
The Running Men
What two college track coaches in Houston are teaching speedsters thereand everywhereabout going for Olympic gold.
Feature
January 1, 2000
A Murder on Campus
A fraternity, a bid-night party, a random act of violence, an unnatural end: the life and death of Southwest Texas State University junior Nick Armstrong.
Profile
November 1, 1999
Renaissance Man
Laugh not, wretch, at the man in the tights: Twenty-five years after George Coulam founded the Texas Renaissance Festival, it hath been a big success.
Style & Design
August 31, 1999
Face • Lauren Bush
This year’s model.
Reporter
April 30, 1999
Unbearable
Baylor University gets sued by one of its own.
Reporter
January 1, 1999
Sign of the Times
The New York Times takes on Texas—again.
Business
December 1, 1998
Soda Flop?
Soft drinks in our public schools.
The Inside Story
December 1, 1998
International Males
Texas seems to have a town named for every place in the world. There’s Paris, Turkey, London, Athens—you get the idea. But when we say that two illustrators featured in this month’s issue, Henrik Drescher and Olaf Hajek, are from New Zealand and Berlin, respectively, understand that we really mean
Film
November 1, 1998
Whereabouts Known
Bruce McGill played D-Day, the biker with the handlebar mustache, in the classic comedy Animal House. Twenty years later, he’s still a character.
T V Talk
September 30, 1998
This Year’s Model
Angie Harmon is disappointed to leave so many unpicked cherry tomatoes in her back yard in California, but she’s had to move to New York to tend to her own Miracle Grow–style success story. That’s where Law and Order films, and this season the 26-year-old Dallas native is the newest
The Culture
September 30, 1998
Must He TV
Brian Benben goes after men-men for CBS
The Inside Story
September 30, 1998
Reid All About It
In August 1973 Jan Reid was published for the first time in Texas Monthly in what was the seventh issue. On April 20, 1998, he was shot by bandits during a robbery in Mexico City. In between, he wrote countless articles for countless publications, earning his reputation as one of
The Inside Story
August 31, 1998
Little, Big Man
Any NBA forward will tell you that it’s hard to get good position on Dennis Rodman, so it’s no surprise to hear the same thing from photographer Blake Little, who shot this month’s cover. From the moment the Chicago Bulls star arrived at SmashBox Studios in Culver City, California, Little
Books
August 31, 1998
Holding Court
He writes legal thrillers, he is a practicing lawyer, and he has been at it since 1990—one year longer than John Grisham. But even if San Antonio’s Jay Brandon hasn’t matched the success of the author of The Firm and The Pelican Brief, he logs remarkably good sales and keeps
The Culture
July 31, 1998
Day of the Ed
What kind of person would be best at figuring out how to spend $295,000? A poet, of course. That kind of money might be chump change to Charles Barkley, but to the prototypical starving artist, it’s a lot of stanzas. Or it will be for University of Houston English professor
The Inside Story
July 31, 1998
Movers and Acres
A professional photographer since the early seventies, David Stoecklein has devoted the past fifteen years to lovingly recording archetypes of the American West—and although he lives in Idaho, he has spent much of that time shooting Texas for coffee-table books such as Don’t Fence Me In, Images of the Spirit
On Location
June 30, 1998
Ernest Goes to Texas
Borgnine: The word itself is barrel-chested, glaring, grotesque. And has a name ever been so suggestive of a face? Known for cinematic classics like From Here to Eternity and Marty (for which he won an Academy award in 1955), Ernest Borgnine last worked in Texas in the mid-fifties, when he
The Inside Story
June 30, 1998
Oh, Danny Boy
In ten years as a professional photographer for publications like the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Texas Monthly, Danny Turner has shot his share of heavyweight politicians, from Al Gore to Ann Richards, and they have often been tough to shoot. “Sometimes you can only take as good a
Business
May 31, 1998
Wooly
Things get woolly for the state’s mohair producers.
Books
May 31, 1998
Bass, Master
The first commandment of fiction writing is: Show, don’t tell. Rick Bass knows it well, though he still struggled through many drafts before finishing his first novel, Where the Sea Used to Be (Houghton Mifflin, $25), which will be published this month. “Paint the images and trust the readers to
Books
May 31, 1998
Bond Plays On
SUNBURNED AND HUNGRY after a day of tubing down the Guadalupe, you head back to Austin for dinner at one of your favorite Tex-Mex restaurants—a garish, festive joint called Chuy’s. You are seated and slurping on a margarita when you spot a striking man in a nearby booth. A little
The Inside Story
April 30, 1998
An Evan Smithee Production
The first film Texas Monthly deputy editor Evan Smith ever saw was A Boy Named Charlie Brown. That was in 1969, when he was only three. But Snoopy, Lucy, and the gang must have had a potent effect because film has been a steady and powerful presence in Smith’s life
Feature
April 30, 1998
The Boosters—Nancy Schafer, Barbara Morgan, and Marsha Milam
Their film festivals are one of the state’s feature presentations.
Music
April 30, 1998
Sour Grupos
The bigger you get, the more people complain about you. That’s the sad fact of life La Mafia is learning to accept. In February the Houston sextet won their second consecutive Grammy, for best Mexican American/tejano music performance, and they’ve just released La Mafia: Hits de Colección, Vol. 1 (Sony
Programming
April 1, 1998
Snoop Dreams
We all know how great the World Wide Web is for snooping: In a few minutes online you learn Hollywood’s secrets from Harry Knowles’ site or get the latest dirt on the president from Matt Drudge. But did you ever consider that people could be looking over your shoulder when
Books
April 1, 1998
Arts and Wozencraft
Except for the time she spent as a police officer in Plano and Tyler—when she couldn’t get past the “emotional shutdown” required by the job—Kim Wozencraft has always been a writer. She kept a journal as a child, as a student at Richland College in Dallas, and later, during a
Business
March 1, 1998
CEO ABCs
The best Texas CEOs.
Music
March 1, 1998
Toad Warriors
Is there a black cloud hanging over Fort Worth’s Toadies? You might think so based on the alt-rock band’s recent history. Their major-label debut for Interscope, 1994’s Rubberneck—a painfully angst-ridden record—went platinum after two years of incessant touring, but some strange stuff happened during all that time on the road:
The Inside Story
March 1, 1998
Banks a Lot
BEFORE SHE BEGAN putting together finely detailed service pieces for magazines like this one, Suzy Banks was occupied with another kind of construction. “I graduated from college in 1981 with a useless degree in film, but I didn’t want to leave Texas,” says the 39-year-old, who lives in Dripping Springs,