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Texas Monthly

65 Articles

The Culture |
January 20, 2013

51–75

From Donald Chambers founding the Bandidos in Houston to Gordon Granger reading General Orders No. 3 in Galveston

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The Culture |
January 20, 2013

51–75

From Donald Chambers founding the Bandidos in Houston to Gordon Granger reading General Orders No. 3 in Galveston

By
Music |
January 20, 2013

Steve Brodner’s Sketchbook (1)

“And don’t forget to come back next week for the Greensheet Awards. Everybody in Austin can win something if you just stick around long enough in this town. A lot of people dressed up tonight and a lot of people didn’t give a s—t, did they? Nobody’s going to work

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Music |
January 20, 2013

Steve Brodner’s Sketchbook (3)

Mark: “They’ve mixed a lot of the Western side with the original, but they’re not original. And this right here is the biggest joke I’ve ever heard. She’s doing mudras [hand movements] through the whole thing, but she’s not even doing the mudras right.” Dan: “It’s nonsensical, the way they’re singing.

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Music |
January 20, 2013

Steve Brodner’s Sketchbook (2)

“The artists that are performing tonight have written compositions or have been influenced by compositions written in Spanish, traditional Mexican music, and what’s called border music, if you will, a marriage of Tex-Mex. And so tonight they are celebrating that acoustically, singing the songs they’ve learned.”— Susan Charney, co-producer of

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Music |
January 20, 2013

Steve Brodner’s Sketchbook (4)

“Cake is a great band. It’s soulful music. It’s food for the soul.” — Krys Holland, audience member, watching Cake at the Austin Music Hall.“When I say go, turn that s—t all the way up.” — Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the Flaming Lips, having passed out cassette tapes to

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BBQ |
January 20, 2013

Smokin’!

Don’t miss your ’cue: We pick the top joints in Texas for brisket, ribs, sausage, and all the sides. Plus, the godfather of barbacoa, the biggest free feast in the state, and more.

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Recipes |
January 20, 2013

Summer Soups

Recipe from Ruth Carter, soups-and-specials cook at Austin’s Eastside Cafe.Dewberry-Orange4 cups dewberries or blackberries, rinsed 2 cups water 1/2 cup sugar 4 ounces cream cheese 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 4 cups fresh orange juice mint leaves for garnish (optional)Combine berries (reserve a few for garnish) with water in a

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Recipes |
January 20, 2013

Walnut-Crusted Striped Bass

Recipe from The Grape’s chef Jason Gorman.Cranberry-Mango Chutney1/8 cup minced garlic 1 cup cranberry juice 1/2 cup honey 1 cup fresh cranberries 1 small mango, diced 1/2 cup dried apricots, diced 1 stick cinnamon 1 tablespoon diced fresh gingerSauté garlic in a saucepan until golden brown. Add remaining ingredients and

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Recipes |
January 20, 2013

Sautéed Shrimp on Cannellini Beans

Radicchio Walnut Salad9 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (preferably from Modena) 2/3 cup sugar 1 cup walnut halves 2 heads radicchio, coarsely chopped or torn 3 ounces Gorgonzola, finely crumbled salt and pepper to tasteWhisk oil and vinegar until thick and season with salt and pepper. Set

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Recipes |
January 20, 2013

Ginger and Pork Steamed Dumplings

Recipe from Chef Clark McDaniel, Angeluna’s, Fort Worth.Black Vinegar–Soy Dipping Sauce1⁄2 cup black vinegar (available at Asian markets) 1⁄2 cup soy sauce or tamari 1⁄4 cup sugar 1 tablespoon sesame oilPlace first 3 ingredients in a saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat

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Recipes |
January 20, 2013

Smoked Pork Loin

Recipe from chef Michael McClure, Guadalupe River Ranch.Stone Wall Potatoes1 tablespoon minced garlic 1⁄4 cup butter 1 pound each of the following potatoes: Peruvian purple, Yukon Gold, red new, and sweet potatoes 1 quart heavy cream or half-and-half 9 large eggs plus 2 yolks 3 teaspoons dill 2 teaspoons thyme

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Recipes |
January 20, 2013

Jicama-Tortilla Salad with Tangerine Dressing

This salad of jícama, mango, and crisp tortilla strips has a distinctive Mexican accent.1 small red onion (about 6 ounces), sliced into thin rings6 tangerines1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice3 tablespoons olive oil1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips1 medium yellow bell pepper, seeded

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

The One Hundred Club

Most legislators who land on the Worst list do so through ineptitude or blunder. John Shields is different: He actively auditioned for the role. He performed as if he had researched the bad old days and come up with a surefire course of action that the greenest freshman would know

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Mr. Clout

The best tributes are the unexpected ones. As Senator David Sibley argued for his bill to halt the costly practice of school districts’ granting property-tax breaks to businesses, a seldom heard-from San Antonio Democrat named Greg Luna joined in the debate. “I’m so glad that a senator of your esteem

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Without Shame

Ask not what Senator Eddie Lucio’s bills do for the public; ask what they do for him. Lucio is a poster child for the kind of legislator whose primal urge is to please his friends, punish his enemies, and promote himself.What, do you suppose, lay behind his proposal to restrict

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Voting for the Children

At least he tried. He was the dominant figure in the session’s dominant issue, Governor Bush’s drive for significant property-tax relief, and he drove it farther than anyone thought possible, though not quite far enough. But the mere recapitulation of his role only begins to reflect what Paul Sadler

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Zero Zero Zero

Bless his heart, he’s just in the wrong place. The Legislature is not right for him. His conservative beliefs are too extreme, his suspicions are too easily aroused, his learning curve is too flat. The man isn’t dumb. He’s got an MBA from Harvard. They read books there. But he

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Politics & Policy |
June 30, 1997

Obi-Wan Kenobi

It is late in the session, and a sticky procedural issue has brought Senate debate to a momentary halt. Senators Teel Bivins of Amarillo and Royce West of Dallas are huddled beside a desk, puzzled about what to do. West, a Democrat, nods in the direction of Bill Ratliff, who

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Radioactive

“If you’ve got me in your sights, I’d like to talk to you before you write anything,” said Kent Grusendorf in the closing hours of the session. He deserved a fair hearing. He is a thoughtful man who was once a fine legislator. But he has become the most radioactive

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Guides |
June 30, 1997

CD and Book Reviews

Hot CDsThe real pleasure in Toni Price’s Sol Power (Antone’s/Discovery/Sire) is trying to peg her as country, blues, or folk. Whether she’s singing something silly and simple, such as “Cats and Dogs,” or taking the sultry and sublime route, as when she covers Allen Toussaint’s “Funky,” the Austinite offers an

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Dumb and Dumber, the Sequel

Last session, passionate debate raged through the Capitol over which of these two East Texas freshmen was the worst member of the Senate. Given a second chance, Galloway and Nixon showed that they had learned…absolutely zero.“He doesn’t have two sessions of experience,” a Republican colleague said of Galloway. “He’s had

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Commonsense Conservatism

Remember the Sherlock Holmes story in which the great detective solves a mysterious death case because a dog did not bark at a thief in the night? The lesson is that what doesn’t happen can be just as important as what does happen—in crime or in the Legislature. (Please, no

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Comic Relief

His true peers are not members of the Legislature but rather Thomas Chippendale, George Hepplewhite, and Duncan Phyfe: Like these names, that of Charles Finnell has become synonymous with “furniture”—a term that in Capitol parlance refers to those members who, by dint of their inactivity or incapacity to grasp what

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Family Man

With his spectacles and bushy mustache, he looks like everybody’s favorite uncle, and appropriately, his niche in the Legislature is to take care of the kids: juvenile justice, safe schools, and adoption laws. In the age of family-values politics, Goodman brings a quiet rationality to issues that have been known

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

A License to Be Bad

The best that can be said about him is that he could have been worse—and was, just last session. Faults ranging from pettiness to mendacity, which landed him on the Worst list in 1995 (when we described him as “one of the more dismal products of democracy to reach the

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

The Bill Doctor

Caught in a real-life episode of E.R., Senator Teel Bivins spent the final week of the legislative session performing triage on bills that were at death’s door. As our story begins, a perspiring Bivins frantically tries to revive Governor Bush’s charter schools program, which is among the 52 bills that

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Seldom Right

Before Kevin Bailey erupted this session, sixteen years had passed since the House had seen an outspoken liberal leader in action. An extra two years would have been a blessing. Bailey is a demagogue straight from the old school—disposed to make personal attacks, preferring cliché to argument, always righteous in

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Master of the Playground

Hugo Berlanga said at the start of the session that he was tired. The time had come to do something else. He was burned-out.Mark it down that this burnout had a long fuse. Hugo—he’s a first-name figure—had a session for the ages. Through behind-the-scenes negotiations and timely amendments, he influenced

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Little Miss Perfect

Every Catholic girls’ school has one student who is Little Miss Perfect. To the endless irritation of her peers, she never misses class, always does her homework, raises her hand to answer every question, bosses her classmates around, and is as prudish and humorless as the nuns. But don’t

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Special Awards

Best PunGovernor George W. Bush. Explaining at a pre-session gridiron dinner how he had turned a deaf ear to his wife’s entreaties that he purchase new formal wear for the event, Bush said he told her, “Read my lips. No new tuxes.”Going…Going…GoneThe legislative leadership team had a lot more on

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Best and Worst Legislators |
June 30, 1997

Why? Why? Why?

Two veteran warriors are facing off, and the House is enjoying it immensely. Kim Brimer of Arlington, a former University of Houston football player and one of Speaker Laney’s chief lieutenants, is trying to pass his sports arena bill, which will let local governments use tax dollars to build stadiums

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