Houston News Blog

​For part of last night's performance of Thornton Wilder's Our Town at the Alley Theatre, audience members were paying more attention to a row of center seats a few rows up from the stage.

Actress Selma Blair  (Hellboy, Hellboy 2, Legally Blonde and NBC's Kath & Kim) who is in town to star in the Alley's upcoming world premiere of Gruesome Playground Injuries (October 16 through November 15) came in to watch the show.

And stayed for the entire production. So it wasn't just a courtesy visit. Understandable since the Alley crew was hitting its marks throughout the night, led by actor James Black who struck the perfect tone as the stage manager.

Also in attendance with Blair, according to a friend of Hair Balls (because Hair Balls wasn't exactly certain), was Gruesome's author, Rajiv Joseph. The friend told us Joseph has been sitting in on all the readings of his upcoming premiere and that this was going to be the breakout play of the season.

Halloween is coming, and that means many, many costuming mistakes will be made by normally sane adults. To help stop this scourge, each Thursday we will be offering tips and analysis of what to avoid, or possibly what to do.

While we don't know when or where we'll black out/get sick this Halloween, one thing's for sure: we'll see a bevy of boring "sexy" standbys - the slutty nurse, the Playboy bunny, the fetching feline. And thanks to the inexplicable popularity of Mad Men, a show unanimously panned by critics for its cardboard characters and summer stock acting, we're sure to see some ladies dolled up as "hot" housewives and office assistants. What we'd really like to see is something that catches us off-guard, that makes us stop dead in our tracks and say, "Now that's sexy!" Here, then, are some challenges for Halloween '09: if you ladies can pull off any of the following, you are guaranteed to stand sexy head and sexy shoulders above the rest.​

Sexy Osama bin Laden

He's tall, with piercing dark eyes, high cheekbones and a slim figure. If bin Laden weren't a cave-dwelling mass-murderer, he'd make one hell of a centerfold. You could position the turban just so, allowing gorgeous locks to spill out from underneath and down toward your off-the-shoulder mini-robe. Add a pair of knee-high black boots and an AK-47 with a Fleshlight bayonet, and you'd be hot enough to make any man blow his top in a crowded outdoor market.

​After a filler ep last week that played out the string on the musical subplot, Glee was back on point last night in a big way. Co-creator Ryan Murphy was once again the credited writer this week's "Vitamin D," a fun episode that moved the season forward and had all kinds of conflict. Plus the two performance numbers were the most energetic and dazzling yet. Plus the solid character narration introduced in the pilot came back with a wicked vengeance, recalling bits of Election. Glad to have you back, kids.

Will's glee club members are apathetic about the upcoming sectionals, since they're competing against a school for the deaf and a group from a halfway house, so to force them to get motivated, Will splits up the guys and girls for a battle of the sexes, with the winning group rewarded the song selection for sectionals. Murphy was killing last night with visual and verbal gags, like Will's chart showing different competing forces: Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, lightning and a swimming pool, and my personal favorite because of sheer potential awesomeness, a shark versus a bear. Think about it!

So the A-line was all about the kids gearing up their numbers, but it tied in nicely with the second plot, which was all about Will's wife getting a job as the school nurse just to keep an eye on him after Sue Sylvester narcs that Will and Emma have been kinda maybe sorta flirting. Terri's a pretty loathsome character, even for a comic fantasy like Glee, and I almost feel bad for actress Jessalyn Gilsig. Still, she works it well.

Photo by Aaron M. Sprecher

​Drayton McLane and his so-called brain trust are supposed to start meeting this week to discuss names for the next manager of the Houston Astros.

Brian McTaggart over at Astros.com throws out some of the usual names we would expect to hear -- Jim Fregosi (friend of Ed Wade), Manny Acta (failed at Washington), Ned Yost (fired only weeks before the Milwaukee Brewers advanced to the playoffs last season), Willie Randolph (fired by the New York Mets), Eric Wedge (recently fired by the Cleveland Indians), Lloyd McClendon (flopped badly as manager of the Pirates), and Tim Bogar (yeah, the former shortstop who was so bad that even Adam Everett was an improvement).

McTaggart also tweets that Don Baylor (fired by Colorado and the Cubs) is under consideration, and the Houston Chronicle's Jose de Jesus Ortiz writes that Mike Hargrove -- who quit the Seattle Mariners in midseason several years ago because he lost his passion for the job -- is also under consideration.

Yeah, that list isn't very inspiring.

But I've done some digging around the Union Station offices, and I discovered another list of ten names, and it was written on paper with the letterhead of one Drayton McLane. So...

10. Bugs Bunny. Now laugh all that you will. But he once played every position and caught himself while pitching and managing at the same time. He's smart. He's good with the media. And he should get along with Junction Jack.

​Houston's historic Heights neighborhood is under siege. In just two months, 12 suspicious fires at local residences have taken place, all within a couple of blocks of each other.

The latest incident occurred in the dark hours of the morning on October 2. Around 2 a.m., firefighters responded a fire at 1030 ½ Ashland. One resident, Eliud Limon, was sleeping in the garage apartment when he woke up to a bang outside the apartment. He told the Houston Chronicle that he went outside and saw smoke coming from the downstairs garage. He woke up the other two individuals who were staying at the apartment. No one was injured in the incident.

Limon and company were already planning on moving out, and with good reason. The garage apartment sat on an otherwise empty lot. The lot was the scene of a series of fires that burned down a duplex that once stood there. The first time the duplex on 1030 Ashland caught on fire was August 8. Throughout the following days, the duplex would be victimized a couple of more times.

One neighbor who didn't want his name used told Hair Balls how it began to look a little more suspicious after each incident.
 

​Can't find a match on Match.com? Can't get it in tune on eHarmony? Desperate for a young hottie, but not exactly a catch yourself and unable to fly to Russia for a mail order bride? We've got a dating sight for you: Jailbabes.

Jailbabes is just like any other dating site, except all of the women on there are incarcerated. And there might be a few more disclaimers than usual, such as this one:

"These ads are written by unique individuals expressing their desires. They may or may not be complete fabrications of wishful thinking."

(How's that different than any other dating site?)

And this one:

"You can find more information about the inmate, including their crime, by calling their prison directly and/or using an Internet search engine (MSN, Dogpile, Google, Yahoo!, etc.). When using an Internet search engine try putting the word PRISONER either before or after the inmate's name."

And finally, this one, from a Texas prison official:

​Most people in the world of music videos may not recognize the name Nahala Johnson, but lately, they've recognized his nom de film: Mr. Boomtown. The Port Arthur native (he now splits his time between Houston and Dallas) is a nominee for the BET Hip Hop Awards' Director of the Year. The show will be held October 10th in Atlanta.

He's nominated for his work on two videos that really couldn't be any more different from each other -- Slim Thug's "I Run," with its breathtaking night-time aerial views of Houston, underground clubs, bling, and wads of cash; and Mike Jones's "Next to You," which features the aforementioned Mr. Jones and his sweetie shopping at Greenspoint Mall and eating Corn Flakes in unbridled domestic bliss.

But after ten years of producing videos for the likes of Scarface, Bun B, Paul Wall, and Mya, Mr. Boomtown is ready for just about anything. We caught up with him this week, but only for a brief phone chat -- as you can imagine, a fellow with the name of "Mr. Boomtown" has quite the busy schedule.

We started by asking him what Slim and Mike differed in their approaches to making videos.

​We've written several items about Jamie Leigh Jones, the local woman who is suing KBR over a gang-rape she says happened while she was working for the company in Iraq.

The company put up roadblocks to her attempts to resolve the situation and her claims of rampant sexual harassment in KBR camps, but the federal courts have allowed her lawsuit to proceed.

As part of the most recent appropriations act for the Defense Department, Senator Al Franken attached an amendment that would, according to the official Senate site,

prohibit the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims.

In other words, companies must allow rape victims to have their day in court. Pretty straightforward, and who would be against it?

A Texas senator, as it turns out.

You've probably seen some version of this headline: "NASA to Bomb the Moon Friday."

All we've got to say is, what took them so long? Mr. Show tackled this issue long ago.

We doubt the event Friday will feature country singer C.S. Lewis, Jr.'s "Blew Moon" ("Look out moon, America's gonna get ya; Gonna go kaboom, it was nice to have met ya -- Because you don't mess around with God's America.") Not to mention a cameo from Sarah Silverman as a protester chanting "We're earthlings; let's blow up earth things."

​Gotcha!

Houston police have finally caught the gunman in a 2004 murder, hunting him all across the United States and Mexico before arresting him Tuesday in Houston.

Police say that Oscar David Zamarripa, 24, shot and killed 22-year-old Alberto Rivera a little more than five years ago at 2215 Hollister. Detectives immediately figured out that Zamarripa was probably the killer and filed murder charges and issued a warrant for his arrest.

But Zamarripa proved to be a slippery one.

Since the shooting, investigators have been following Zamarripa's moves closely. They tracked him down to south Texas, Mexico, California and Utah, but each time Zamarripa stayed one move ahead.