The Culture
March 1, 2005
Return to Splendor
From humble Oak Cliff roots did a hip intellectual giant grow. In this oral history, friends and fans remember the late Grover Lewis, one of the great magazine writers of our day.
Best of TM Archives
Food & Drink
March 1, 2005
Confessions of a “Skinny Bitch”
Over the past thirty years, I’ve edited or written more than 28,000 restaurant reviews for this magazine. That’s a lot of crème brûlée under the bridge, folks. So what’s my life been like, exactly? And how have I stayed this thin? Good questions.
Music
February 1, 2005
He’s Daniel Johnston, and He Was Gonna Be Famous
He was, for a while, and look what happened: Today one of the great songwriters in the alternative-rock universe is a 44-year-old manic-depressive living with his parents in Waller. And the worst thing about it is that he’s about to be famous again.
Feature
January 1, 2005
“She Had Brains, a Body, and the Ability To Make Men Love Her”
Meet the 22-year-old hooker who, with her fellow “massage therapists,” scandalized Odessa
Sports
December 1, 2004
The Shot Not Heard Round the World
Elmo Henderson’s entire life story can be summed up in a single moment: when he stepped into the ring in San Antonio one night in 1972 and knocked out Muhammad Ali. At least that’s the way he tells it. And tells it.
Film & TV
November 1, 2004
They Came. They Sawed.
And they most definitely conquered. The inside story of how a ragtag bunch of hippies made the wildest Texas movie ever (and spilled no more fake blood than was absolutely necessary).
Politics & Policy
July 31, 2004
The Man With the Plan
You probably know that Tom DeLay spearheaded the massive—and massively controversial— congressional redistricting effort that tied Texas legislators in knots for one regular and three special sessions. What you probably don’t know is how he did it. Herein lies a tale.
News & Politics
April 30, 2004
The Metamorphosis
If you want to understand the shift in political power that has taken place in Texas over the past thirty years—from rural areas to the new suburbs, from Democratic control to Republican dominance—you'll hardly find a better case study than Tom DeLay's Sugar Land.
Music
April 1, 2004
It’s a Family Affair
For all her talent and poise, Beyoncé didn’t become the biggest star in the world without help. And she got plenty of it from the people who know her best.
Music
April 1, 2004
King of the Accordion
You may never have heard of Ramón Ayala, but to his four generations of fans in South Texas and Mexico, he’s music royalty. He revolutionized norteño, a genre that reigns along the border, and—after more than one hundred albums—is still going strong.
Critters
March 1, 2004
Conversations With a Grasshopper
To experience the majesty and peril of the desert on my own terms, I spent a week alone in the Solitario, the most remote area of Big Bend Ranch State Park. I confronted my darkest fears—and made small talk with an insect.
True Crime
February 1, 2004
Family Man
To his suburban Dallas neighbors, Todd Becker was a doting husband and devoted father. They had no clue that he led a secret, lucrative life as a safecracker.
Sports
January 1, 2004
McKenzie Mullins Has Cow
Which means she’s an expert at reading bovine body language, and that makes her, at the absurdly young age of thirteen—only four years after overcoming her fear of horses—one of the world’s best practitioners of the art of cutting.
Texas History
January 1, 2004
Showdown at Waggoner Ranch
It’s the nation’s biggest spread within the confines of a single fence—more than eight hundred square miles extending across six counties. So it’s fitting that the family feud over its future is big too. And mythic.
Food and Drink
July 31, 2003
Tex-Mex 101
Nachos, tomatillo sauce, chile con queso—will the real Mexican food please stand up? A crash course in Texans’ favorite fusion fare.
News & Politics
July 31, 2003
About a Girl
Audra Thomas can't read these words and, in a few months, wouldn't remember them anyway. Nevertheless, she has an extraordinary sense of the world around her—and of herself.
Sports
July 31, 2003
Running for His Life
Ten years ago, on a mountaintop in Africa, about to be burned alive by tribal warriors, a teenager saved himself the only way he knew how. Even today, he wonders why he survived.
True Crime
June 1, 2003
Ciudad de la Muerte
Ten years. More than three hundred women murdered. What is going on in Juárez? And why aren't the Mexican authorities doing something about it?
Sports
April 30, 2003
The Skinny on Slim
Thomas Austin Preston, Jr.—a.k.a. Amarillo Slim—has cut cards with LBJ and hustled all manner of sharpies at pool and Ping-Pong. But at 74, his greatest success continues to be at the poker table, as my $100 and I found out.
Texana
April 30, 2003
Wild Things
My siblings and I had plenty of pets growing up, but they were never quite as exciting as those we caught ourselves, such as tarantulas. And garden snakes. And of course, horny toads.
Politics & Policy
March 1, 2003
Oaf of Office
Kinky Friedman for governor?!?
Business
February 1, 2003
Mother Nurture
The secret to running Southwest Airlines? Be sentimental. Share. And love.
Feature
February 1, 2003
Queen for a Day
At this year's Miss Texas Teen USA pageant, girls from big cities and small towns stuffed their bras, slicked Vaseline across their teeth, and prayed that their thighs were toned enough. Anything for the crown.
Feature
December 1, 2002
It Came A-Pun a Midnight Clear
Before you start wrapping presents, here's a gift from us to you: a Texas-holiday-themed crossword puzzle. Sharpen your pencil and get a clue.
Politics & Policy
November 1, 2002
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
Once upon a time, the Central Texas town of Crawford was like Mayberry: Everyone knew everyone, no one talked politics, and the air was ripe with the aroma of hogs. Then the leader of the free world bought a little place west of the Middle Bosque River, and nothing was
True Crime
November 1, 2002
Suburban Madness
Why would a devoted wife deliberately run over her beloved husband three times? It’s quite simple, really. He was having an affair with a woman accused by her allegedly pill-popping ex-husband of carrying on a lesbian relationship with her best friend, whose ex-husband has been indicted for an illegal wiretapping
Feature
July 31, 2002
Family Circus
Children of all ages! Step right up and get to know a South Texas clan whose nomadic way of life is a link to the past.
True Crime
June 30, 2002
Two Barmaids, Five Alligators, and the Butcher of Elmendorf
He was a ladies’ man who owned a tavern. He kept gators in a pool behind the place, into which he liked to toss small animals. He hired women to wait tables, and some of them disappeared. What happened? With Joe Ball, it was easy to believe the worst.
True Crime
June 30, 2002
Maybe Darlie Didn’t Do It
Darlie Routier has been on death row for five years now, always insisting that she didn't kill her sons Devon and Damon. And as her lawyers prepare to head into court yet again, new information about her case raises the possibility that she may have been telling the truth all
Texana
April 30, 2002
Cold Comfort
Texans turn to Dairy Queen for more than just Hungr-Busters, Steak Finger Country Baskets, and Blizzards. They also come for a taste of days gone by.
Music
April 1, 2002
Mack McCormick Still Has the Blues
His cache of unpublished interviews and unreleased recordings is unrivaled—but both collector and collection are showing signs of age. Who will save the legacy of the man who saved Texas music?
True Crime
March 1, 2002
The Day Treva Throneberry Disappeared
The North Texas teenager went missing in the late eighties. For years, no one knew where she was, or even if she was still alive-no one, that is, except a mysterious young woman two thousand miles away.
True Crime
February 1, 2002
Durst Case Scenarios
Last September a human torso was found floating in Galveston Bay—a gruesome discovery that opened a window into the bizarre life of the accused murderer, New York multimillionaire Robert Durst.
Arts & Entertainment
January 1, 2002
My Short, Unhappy Life as a Rodeo Clown
Once upon a time I thought I wanted to be a bullfighter (and not the kind that wears sequined tights). A legendary cowboy named Leon Coffee and an animal named Pretty Boy changed my mind.
Energy
November 1, 2001
How Enron Blew It
The Houston-based energy giant put the pursuit of profits ahead of all other corporate goals, which fostered a climate of workaholism and paranoia. And that was only part of the problem.
True Crime
September 30, 2001
Hit Man
Psst! Looking to have somebody murdered? You might want to call Gary Johnson, the number one hired killer in Houston. Then again you might not. You see he works for the cops.
Being Texan
July 31, 2001
Queen of the Rodeo
For teenage girls in the Hill Country town of Llano, life can be short on glamour and excitement—except at the annual rodeo, when one of them gets a rhinestone tiara and a rare, thrilling moment of glory.
Reporter
July 31, 2001
Plenty of Ammo
Katy Vine sits down with the former mayor of Gun Barrel City.
The Culture
March 1, 2001
Tex Education
Who exactly was Cabeza de Vaca? Why did Texas revolutionaries shout, “Remember Goliad”? Sharpen your pencils for Part I of my four-part Texas literacy test.
Books
March 1, 2001
Return to The Gay Place
Forty years after it was published, Billy Lee Brammer's novel about LBJ-era Austin is still one of the best ever written about American politics. Yet just as interesting is the story of Brammer himself.
Being Texan
February 1, 2001
Love and War in Cyberspace
Brandon and Denise were not like other people. They were smarter, more introverted. They adored computers, playing games online at three in the morning with people in Finland. When they and other hard-core techies moved to Walden, a Houston apartment complex with the fastest residential Internet connection in the world,
Texas History
January 1, 2001
Return to Padre
For years my relatives have claimed that they were robbed of oil and gas royalties on Padre Island. Last May a Brownsville jury agreed, vindicating—for now—the family’s proud heritage and proving that, sometimes, the little guy does win.
True Crime
January 1, 2001
Under the Gun
Nine years after the brutal murder of four teenage girls in a yogurt shop rocked the city of Austin, the police say they have finally caught the killers. But they have no evidence and no witnesses—only two confessions that the defendants say were coerced. Which is why, when the case
News & Politics
November 1, 2000
They Haven’t Got a Prayer
In the Gulf Coast town of Santa Fe, high school football games had always kicked off with a prayer, but in June the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the practice violated the separation of church and state. Now the issuewhich has turned neighbor against neighbor and provoked some decidedly un-Christian
Criminal Justice
July 31, 2000
Free Greg Ott!
Twenty-two years ago a Texas Ranger was shot and killed during a drug raid on the home of Greg Ott, a philosophy graduate student. Even today, no one really knows what happened on that tragic night.
Food & Drink
May 31, 2000
The Meating
Three friends, seven years, untold pounds of barbecue pork chops and prime rib, and a single tradition that elevates the experience above mere food.
Music
April 30, 2000
Gotta Lubbock
Buddy Holly. Waylon Jennings. Carolyn Hester. The Hancocks. The Flatlanders. An oral history of the state's most storied music scene.
Texas Primer
April 1, 2000
We Remember: Tom Landry
A tip of the hat to Tom Landry.
True Crime
March 1, 2000
Blood Will Sell
The richest man ever tried for murder has found the Lord, along with a new career peddling hand cream. Are you buying the latest incarnation of Cullen Davis?
Music
December 1, 1999
Songwriter
Move over, Anna Nicole Smith. Mexia’s biggest celebrity is Cindy Walker, who penned hits made famous by everyone from Eddy Arnold to Bob Wills.