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Roar of the Crowd

Texas Monthly Reporter

A nuclear quandary in West Texas; the fine art of political feuding in San Antonio; the redfish ranching business in Monahans; the education of a power broker in training in Houston.

Puzzle

Cheetah! Fetch Tarzan New Script

In Greystoke, neither Tarzan nor the audience gets to have any fun; Moscow on the Hudson takes a wonderful comedy and runs; Racing With the Moon is nostalgic and sure, but the plot comes undone.

Just Friends

The story of Lenell Geter’s release from prison is unfinished without the tale of the conservative engineers who stuck their necks out to help a friend in trouble.

Honk If You Love Elephants

With the Republican convention only three months away, Dallas’ sales forces are frantically gearing up for a merchandising bonanza.

Behind the Lines

I take over Exxon.

Uncivil Wars

Civil Wars is armed with first-rate writing; Free Agents is a grab bag of Max Apple’s short fiction; Edisto is a precocious first novel; Group Therapy doesn’t probe deeply enough; Lords of the Earth is yet another Texas oil saga.

I Opened Tax Returns for the IRS

Behind the scenes at regional headquarters—a sometime part-timer tells all.

The Hub Cafe

It wasn’t the classiest place in Pharr to grow up, but it had tough truckers, sassy waitresses, and some of the best fry cooks in the Valley.

The Ponytail

Warm spring days call for giving in to new clothes and a neck-baring hairdo.

Look, Ma, My Computer Did It!

See the future on your computer: software on stocks, football, and astrology.

It’s a High-Tech Life

While most people are using their computers to balance their checkbooks and play games, these three Texans are pushing their machines and programs to the limit.

Death of a Computer

Four critical mistakes forced Texas Instruments to pull the plug on the home computer that it had once expected would dominate the market.

Birth of a New Frontier

Hundreds of new computer companies have made Texas the likely successor to California’s Silicon Valley, and it all started with two firms in Dallas.

Winter’s Travail

When the Rio Grande Valley’s balmy breezes turned frigid last winter, its aloe vera fields and stately palms turned from lush green to pitiful brown.

Touts

Country pleasures.

Alley of Aspirations

Houston’s well-heeled Alley Theatre is trying to pass itself off as a national theater. Across town, the Chocolate Bayou is just trying to hang on.

State Secrets

Gary Hart’s rise hurts two Texas politicos; at last, a solution to the South Texas Nuclear Project mess; the all-new Braniff turns out to be the same old Braniff; a delicate question about doctors.

Programming Your Taxes

The first in a series of software reviews looks at tax-preparation packages.

Roar of the Crowd

Watching the news, rating the crews, holding down the fort.

Texas Monthly Reporter

A heated race for the Senate; a leisurely trip to Astrotown; a cool master of Dallas protocol; a steel-industry success story in Seguin.

Puzzle

Toss of the coins.

Texas Primer: The Yellow Rose of Texas

If it wasn’t for the song, no one would remember Emily Morgan, but she launched a nation by diverting Santa Anna at San Jacinto.

Bait and Switch

Against All Odds promises love, delivers yawns. Entre Nous repels rather than attracts. Footloose and Reckless aren’t. This is Spinal Tap is painless.

Hi-Yo, Silicon!

Texas’ glory, till now based on oil, may be based on silicon in years to come.

Behind the Lines

Texas in silicon.

Light in the Hills

German landscape artist Hermann Lungkwitz saw romantic vistas in the Hill Country at a time when most Texans saw only hardscrabble farmland.

At the Mercy of the Court

What do drunks, prostitutes, lunatics, and elevators have in common? They’re all part of the weird 24-hour-a-day world of the Dallas County courthouse.

“I Beat Ben Barnes and John Connally in a Fair Fight”

When Bames-Connally Investments announced plans to build apartments in a South Austin neighborhood, the residents banded together to try to stop them. They won the battle but lost the war.

In the Wings

Backstage at the Houston Ballet is a world of pastel shadows, brilliant spangles, and anxious waiting.

The Deluxe Down-and-Dirty Goose Hunt

In which a group of society ladies samples the thrills and chills of an essentially masculine pastime.

Perfect Texas

There’s no point in grousing about Texas’ minor shortcomings. Why not just roll up our sleeves and make it perfect once and for all?

I-10 On Ice

In five hours on icy roads the author covered 35 miles and discovered the perils of driving in a state that is unprepared for real winter.

Touts

Seven Texas jewelers show their mettle.

State Secrets

Mesa gets an unwanted ally in its battle against Gulf; how to turn $100 million into $12 million; why 1984 is a good year for incumbents; the legal establishment takes aim at a controversial supreme court judge.

Roar of the Crowd

The kindest and unkindest cuts of all.

Texas Monthly Reporter

Looking for the essence of Texas in El Paso, the soul of Dr. Red Duke in Houston, the secrets of status in Dallas, and a quirky West Texas empire in Balmorhea.

Puzzle

Without further introduction

Mermaid Love

Ron Howard’s Splash is a refreshing frolic; Broadway Danny Rose gives us the old soft shoe; And the Ship Sails On is out to sea; Reuben, Reuben is a dark but funny double-decker.

Back in the Mood

A definitive Smithsonian Recordings collection sets a new standard for big band anthologies; other big band recordings prove that swing remains vibrantly alive.

Who Needs Singers?

In conductor’s opera, each of the vocalists becomes just one more instrument in the musical ensemble.

Behind the Lines

Monkeying with the schools.

Big Oil Paranoia

Robert Sherrill’s Oil Follies of 1979-1980 leaves no detail unremarked in its effort to pin the blame on Big Oil; in Ronnie Dugger’s On Reagan the author is as unbending an ideologue as his subject is.

Come On, Walter—Smile!

Austin’s Roy Spence parlayed his success in Mark White’s campaign into a job selling Walter Mondale to the American people.

The Training Ground

To wind up on top in the news business, it pays to start at the bottom.

At the Scene

The best local news programs in Texas make big bucks for their stations, but so do the worst ones. Here’s how they stack up.

Bad News

Local TV news has as much to do with show biz as with journalism. Unfortunately, most viewers take it seriously.

Love and Death in Silicon Prairie, Part II: The Killing of Betty Gore

Candy Montgomery thought her affair with Allan Gore was over, until she found herself fighting for her life against Allan’s wife.

Touts

Breaking up is hard to do.