The heretofore anchor donor for the Houston Area Women’s Center’s fundraising efforts has pulled out and abandoned them.

Help the HAWC with a single donation here. Or, better, do as I do and give them a monthly donation. You never notice it, but they damn sure will.

I joked about refusing to support or care anymore after their move to the AL, but this is seriously bullshit. They can fuck off as far as I’m concerned, for now and evermore. I’ll take what little baseball amusement I need from the Nats.

In the wake of news that there’s yet another reason to hate Reef and Bryan Caswell, we received a bit of fan mail this week from a purported “Mystery Fan”:

We encourage your continued avoidance of all Caswell-infected properties: Reef, Little Bigs, El Real, etc.

Go check out my biking friend Alex’s video about Juan Carlos, the dancing rollerblader often seen in greater Montrose.

Hay Merchant has announced a movie night.

Well, you just use the local horse track, of course.

Who has a good independent insurance agent or agency in Houston they’re happy with?

Our local restaurants do things like this:

(For the nonlocal: today the building houses both the mighty Hay Merchant, a beer lover’s dream, as well as a higher-end food and wine joint called Underbelly, but for years upon years it was home to a lesbian bar called Chances.)

John T. Edge on covers our exploding food scene in Savoring Mutt City: Why Houston is becoming a top-tier destination to eat and drink.

The story begins:

We’re boating the high-top cloverleaf in a kandy-kolored streamline baby, if you know what I mean. A 1967 LeMans ragtop, stardust blue, with red-lined fatties and cigarettes-and-whiskey mufflers.

It’s a summer night, circa right now. I’m in the backseat, leaching liquor and perspiration onto the vinyl. Chris Shepherd, who spent the afternoon at a Vietnamese nail salon here in Houston, is digging his shellacked toes into the front passenger-side pile, while Bryan Caswell palms the steering wheel and blasts Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears through a removable-face Blaupunkt that would have gotten him laid in tenth grade.

Goddamn if that didn’t just send me to eBay motors searching for late-60s absurd convertibles… Apparently, if you don’t care about “original” or “concours,” you can get something for well under ten grand…

1. Underbelly.

2. Oxheart.

Houston is getting a local bourbon distiller.

Chuy’s is now a public company.

I grew up cringing every time somebody or something from where I lived made national news. I’m therefore delighted to be so proud of my city and our mayor, who was on the Colbert Report last night.

So it goes: the only decent music station on Houston’s FM dial, 103.7, is switching to a Christian format.

I recently re-read this fantastic piece from the Houston Press, which ran originally back in 2006. Ever since then, I’ve kinda wanted to do my own stroll down the length of Westheimer — though I doubt I’d have as much fun at it as Lomax and Mueller. Who’s with me?

You know, I really DID miss the sorts of storms that we’ve been enjoying the last week or so, but I really don’t need them to be so dramatic as to zap my power.

On the other hand, this is the first power outage of measurable length — 35 minutes and counting — that I remember since Ike back in 2008. Let’s hope this one doesn’t go for 4 day.

Also? All hail iPads with keyboards and 3G.

Go see American Falls by Miki Johnson, over at DiverseWorks.

Mrs Heathen and I have just come from opening night, and I’m still processing it, but I can say this: It’s one of the most affecting, beautiful, amazing things I’ve seen on stage. It’s truly remarkable. I see lots and lots of plays. I see lots of plays with these people in them. I don’t see many plays that leave a lump in my throat or my eyes wet. This one did.

I’m going back tomorrow, because that’s the only time I can. Show runs through June 9. Don’t miss this. When people talk about what’s amazing about Houston’s arts community, it’s work like this that they mean.

Trust me. I know things.

Local shutterbug and tech guru Jay Lee cuts a relatively wide path in Houston between his column at the Chronicle and his radio show over at KPFT. He’s also been investigating just how often his (quite good) photography is being used illegally by other sites.

This story of what happened when GoDaddy (correctly) shut down one offending site is pretty amazing. tl;dr? The site owner — some local lawyer named Candice Schwager — went full crazybats on him, accusing him of being in cahoots with her political enemies, threatening to sue, and the whole nine yards. Seriously wackdoodle stuff.

For maximum lulz, read her account and compare it to Jay’s. We’re not friends, but we have lots of friends in common; he’s a nice, friendly guy who would just prefer folks not view his Flickr stream as a stock photo catalog, and he’s within his rights to feel that way.

Well, Candy, welcome to Google.

Update: Jay had to take down the post, but there’s a mirror here, which happened after the post made it to Slashdot. Meanwhile, the attorney bullying him still has her one-sided rant about it over on her blog. What a tool.

I was vexed to discover I was booked already when Garbage announced tonight’s show, so this news is actually good news for me.

Assuming they make it back here, anyway.

Longtime Heathen THP, Esq., makes an appearance in this clip over at KPRC, as he’s representing a woman the now-resigning Galveston county district clerk illegally fired. Go Tom!

More at the Galveston Daily News.

When I went out for the mail, four women dressed as flappers, purporting to be on a “Beer Hunt,” asked if they could (a) pretend my front yard was a public park and (b) photograph me leapfrogging them. Note that whether or not I was willing to leapfrog was never, apparently, at issue.

Sadly, this did not come to pass, as one of the flappers was insistent that my yard was in no way a public park, and that any resulting photograph would be unable to hide that fact, and that it was cheating besides.

So that happened.

STOP THIS. No, I do not want your app. I do not need to see this information-obstructing hyperobnoxious ad every. single. time. I visit chron.com on my iPad.

On this day in 1861, Sam Houston was forced to resign as Governor of Texas for refusing to secede and swear allegiance to the Confederacy:

Fellow-Citizens, in the name of your rights and liberties, which I believe have been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of the nationality of Texas, which has been betrayed by the Convention, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of the Constitution of Texas, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of my own conscience and manhood, which this Convention would degrade by dragging me before it, to pander to the malice of my enemies, I refuse to take this oath. I deny the power of this Convention to speak for Texas . . . I protest . . . against all the acts and doings of this convention and I declare them null and void.

Houston retired to Huntsville, and was dead by 1863. To say he’d had an interesting life is to understate things rather dramatically. Immigrants to Texas like myself would do well to review that Wikipedia article, since we missed the no-doubt otherwise inescapable “History of Texas” classes in middle school.

I guess the folks out at Grace Church in the Woodlands got tired of being the other Houston megachurch, so they’ve decided to make a play for being Houston’s most homophobic megachurch by calling out Mayor Parker for her stance on gay marriage.

Local columnist Charles Kuffner may have the best take:

Unless Pastor Riggle believes Mayor Parker is going to take over the County Clerk’s office and give out marriage licenses as she sees fit, and also take over the Attorney General’s office to prevent any consequences for that, I’m puzzled as to what exactly he thinks she is doing that is wrong. Well, except for the fact that he thinks being gay is icky, because it forces him to spend so much time thinking about what gay people do so he can always be in a state of disapproval about it. You really should be more considerate to the gay-obsessed pastors of the world, Mayor Parker.

The current “beer board” is not what Kevin Floyd wanted to begin with:

Although it may seem like no expense was spared, there is one focal point of the bar that didn’t make the budget. The chalkboard beer list, which takes constant updating as Floyd switches out the 80-odd taps, was envisioned originally as an old-fashioned split-flat board like the ones found displaying train schedules in old European stations. Unfortunately, only two companies in the world still make the analog boards, and they’re located in Japan and Italy.

Citing a move toward the digital model, they quoted the board Floyd envisioned at $150,000. He politely declined.

Shit-beer vendor Anheuser-Busch whined to Hay Merchant about their practice of using Bud and Bud Light 40-oz bottles for water service, so they’ve had to switch to Cobra malt liquor.

One again, Heathen Nation, join me in a hearty “fuck you” to AB and all their ilk.

Local jackass Michael Berry has apparently been involved in a hit-and-run when leaving a Montrose gay bar.

The drought in Houston (and Texas) in 2011 came up in conversation with a co-worker today, which set me wondering what the hard numbers were.

First, let’s figure out what “normal” rainfall looks like. Wikipedia says we usually get something like 54 inches of rain a year; NOAA says it’s more like 49.77″.

NOAA also has per-year values. We got less than 25 inches of rain in 2011. That’s less than half normal, which is a lot for a place that typically gets more than four feet a rain a year.

NOAA’s figures since 2000 are below; note that no other year in the list is even close to 2011.

• 2011: 24.57″
• 2010: 42.72″
• 2009: 47.01″
• 2008: 53.00″
• 2007: 65.52″
• 2006: 57.86″
• 2005: 41.21″
• 2004: 65.06″
• 2003: 45.76″
• 2002: 59.68″
• 2001: 71.18″ (19″ in June alone thanks to Allison)
• 2000: 47.61″

So, yeah. Pretty dry.

Houston millionaire, polo patron, and drunk-driving enthusiast John Goodman has legally adopted his girlfriend, presumably to give himself access to the trust he set up for his children.

Goodman, you may recall, has been charged with vehicular homicide for killing 23-year-old Scott Wilson with his Bentley two years ago, and is predictably also being sued for wrongful death by Wilson’s family; in that matter, he is also seeking to hide the fact that he now has unfettered access to 1/3 of the trust from the jury.

I don’t often say nice things about the Chron, but this story about Houston’s first underground reservoir is fascinating, as are the accompanying photos.

Also cool: It’s like 2 miles from Heathen World HQ.

Certain longtime Heathen will recognize certain names in this story about bad workplace behavior in this month’s Forbes.

Way to go, THP, a gentleman I’ve know for literally years as “someone with his finger to the pulse of reprehensible workplace behavior.”

Holy CRAP this band sucks.

My friend @GunsAndTacos lives One Block Off Washington, and has both a Q-Beam and a web site. He combines these elements with the near-constant stream of douchebros drunkenly stumbling around his neighborhood around closing time to delightful effect. Enjoy.

When we’re looking at excerpts from a book of photography entitled Chicks with Guns, and discover Lynn Wyatt is one of the subjects. Nice .308, Lynn.

Check this out.

(There’s lots of them, from the likes of Lyle Lovett, Billy Gibbons, etc., but Jim’s is my favorite.)

Pretty much anything he writes is pure gold, but this time around Joe Mathlete knocks it out of the park with 29 Things My Grandpa Is Still Unable To Get His Head Around.

And anyone else with a soft spot in their hearts for air hockey, that is.

As it turns out, like Tang and dehydrated ice cream, we have NASA to thank for the tables.

Our buddy GunsAndTacos breaks down the Houston taco truck scene for you. You’re welcome.

Galveston: now with free cocaine.

The Chron is reporting that the city’s contract with the red-light camera people had an “out” they could have exercised within 4 months of the vote last November that would have saved millions.

The city of Houston might have been able to shut off its red-light cameras within four months of voters demanding it in last November’s elections, but the Parker administration opted not to use an escape clause that would have meant more than $3 million in continuing costs while the clock ran out.

Instead, the city took another path that has them “arguing” in court for a side nobody believes they actually support (i.e., the removal of the cameras). They just happened to get a ruling they like, too. I smell a rat.

The people voted on this, and rejected the cameras. That should have been the end of it, but apparently referendums repealing city ordinances must happen within 30 days of the passage of the ordinance in question (WTF, right? Almost like they don’t want such repeal efforts to be possible…). The Federal judge’s ruling, though, doesn’t free Parker’s administration from their moral obligation to honor the will of the people.

Turning the cameras back on and pretending to litigate it out — a process that I’m sure will take plenty of time, during which the cameras will remain on — fools nobody.

I supported Parker two years ago, but the apparently cavalier way she’s handled this point gives me serious pause about doing so again. I’m disinclined to reward this kind of behavior with my vote even if she does well on other issues.

Broke our longstanding boycott of the hypercorporate House of Blues to see Steve Earle. Verdict: Worth it, but it’ll take someone as good as Earle to get us back in there. Something about that venue just attracts old drunk jackasses from the suburbs. Even so, Earle and his band — which includes Mrs Earle Allison Moorer (who sounds more like her sister than I remember) as well as another entire band in The Mastersons — positively cooked for nearly 3 hours; we definitely got our money’s worth as long as you leave out the $8 beers.

We left mildly vexed that fellow New West artist Robert Ellis was having his Houston album release party over at Fitzgerald’s at exactly the same time; in truth it was probably still going on after we left HoB, but 11:30 is too late to go to a second bar on a schoolnight. Fortunately, Cactus was kind enough to reserve one of the limited edition vinyl copies of Ellis’ record for us, so bully for them.

From our new acquaintance Alexander, who wrote this review of the New York Dolls/Poison/Motley Crue show, which blessedly included this bit in the voice of SNL’s Stefon:

Houston’s hottest night club is Püé. Impressario Pamela Tranderson Lee, back from touring with Cirque de Sogay, has done it again. Located at the edge of EaDo, this club has it all: explosions, pyrotechnics, a two-story stripper pole, a kick drum bigger than Vince Neil’s waistline, a drum kit mounted on a 40′ ring that straps the drummer in upside down, two albino cat-women, and a Ben Afflict. That’s that thing where you pretend you earned it on merit, show up to political rallies uninvited and wear Affliction shirts to fit in…

How about you stop not surprising us?

Stay the hell out of the Houston waterways.

Note: This is probably true of ANY urban waterway.

Jalopnik agrees with us, Gawker be damned:

Washington was not the first word spoken on the moon. When a situation turns bad no one says “Los Angeles, we have a problem” because no wants help from Charlie Sheen. Houston is Space City, the birthplace of the shuttle program, and the rightful home of one of the retired shuttles.

I’m not saying any of the cities who did receive a shuttle (New York, LA, and Washington D.C.) didn’t each deserve a space shuttle. I’m just saying none of them deserved one more than Houston, a city that would give the spacecraft the attention and reverence it deserves.

LA, Chuckie? Really? Not Houston? Are you shitting me? And the old Enterprise goes to fucking New York?

Christ. I get that Texas gets to reap what it has sown, what with our statewide pols regularly flipping off Washington at every turn, but leaving Houston off the list of final Shuttle berths is just absurd. It’s even worse than putting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame somewhere like, oh, I dunno, Cleveland.

I’ve been sitting on this list for months, but it deserves to be posted. I’ve only been a Houstonian for 16 years, but I definitely miss #96, the excellent burgers and green chili stew at Cosmos Cafe (#91), #84 (where I saw Sling Blade), the divey awesomeness of #69, and Charlie Watkins’ wine list at Sierra (#64).

Being at least tangentially connected to Rice, I know that #60 is just “tending at a higher bar.” It will always be Transco to me (#94). I hate we lost the Proletariat (#39), and still have no rail on Richmond. I definitely miss the Book Stop (#35). And my feelings about pre-United Continental (#9) are well documented here.

The loss of #8 (the Ale House) is partly soothed by the Stag’s Head, but it lacks the same rambling charm of the old house-turned-pub. Where’s Allen Hill going to leap from a balcony in the new place, I ask you?

The new Cactus is just fine by me, with a nicer staff and a more sustainable business model, so I’m not sure I miss the old store any more.

I don’t miss #100 at all, and the Daily Grind (#59) has no place on the list. What I miss in the “Heights breakfast and coffee” category is Kaldi, dammit.

Burger meh. Fries awesome.