Results tagged “texas”

Seattle’s athletic misfortunes may be embarrassing, but at least we aren’t hosting the Jonas Brothers for the Thanksgiving Day halftime show.

This Seattlest just returned from Austin, Texas, for the annual South by Southwest music festival. While enjoying Austin, we were struck by one thing over and over again--how much Texas really wants to be its own nation. Nothing drove that point home more than comparing Texas' Capitol building to our very own Capitol. The state building in Austin is easily three times the size of Washington States and rivals the size of the Capitol building in D.C.

This post is brought to you by, we believe, Seattlest's lone Hillary supporter or, as we like to refer to ourself, Hillpporter.

Clinton is up by a smidge in Texas, it's neck and neck in Ohio, and Rush Limbaugh fans are going big for Hillary.

We have gathered some of the top political writers in the country and asked them to discuss the presidential race throughout the year. Today they will discuss the Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Tonight's show deserves special attention because Reign of Terror is, to our knowledge, the only noir film set during the French revolution. NoirFan62 says:

The great Anthony Mann takes a film that would probably play mostly as a colorful, sweeping, epic piece dealing with the French revolution and turns it, with the help of cinematographer John Alton, into a dark, shadowy and claustrophobic film noir/adventure/spy/suspense tale period piece featuring excellent performances from a cast that includes Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart and Arlene Dahl.

Today there is an extra skip in our step, and song in our whistle. All across Arizona pitchers and catchers are reporting to work, which means Spring Training is underway.

If you go, go for Suzanne Bouchard's outstanding performance as a feral alcoholic widow. You won't see better acting in Seattle. (Also, thanks to design team Michael Ganio, Frances Kenny, York Kennedy, and Christopher Walker, the sights and sounds of a Texas summer day have never seemed so real to us.)

In a press conference that's going on right now, Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren announced that 2008 will be his final year as head coach of the Seahawks.

Where Paul Thomas Anderson's previous films are layered with multiple characters, dovetailing conflicts and weird kawinkydinks, his latest is refined, focused, and real-life unsettling. There Will Be Blood, an adaptation of Upton Sinclair's ever-topical 1927 novel Oil!, is just as skillfully orchestrated as Boogie Nights and Magnolia, but resonates more than a big-dick or raining-frogs story ever could.

Expect the national TV broadcasters to rain clichés on the constant grey that is Seattle this weekend as the Seahawks host the Sean Taylor Memorial Experience at Qwest Field.

When last we checked in with Texas A&M, their fans were sending us insane emails after we wrote about that whole Seahawks/12th man dispute. (Texas A&M has a 12th man tradition too, they said the Hawks were infringing on it). Our favorite such email concluded thusly: "Keep your latte sippin, tree huggin, PETA lovin, flannel shirt, leg humping asses off our traditions." It's funny because it's true. Honestly, what is it with our asses here...

Woody Guthrie was, and in many ways still is, one of the most important figures in the history of American music. He's responsible for hundreds of songs, some of which are still being found and put to music. His contributions to the American songbook include, of course, "This Land is Your Land," but also "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Pastures of Plenty," and other topical tunes by which topical songwriters continue to measure their worth. He also wrote two books--an autobiography called , which is a sort-of memoir that he disclaims at the beginning as being the story of his moving to California from Texas the way he remembers it. Which is to say, not entirely true.

Last night the Colorado Rockies won the National League pennant and removed themselves from the dreaded list of franchises that have never made it to the World Series.

Tonight Earlimart, The Quiet Ones, and OFFICE play the Croc. We already said plenty of good things about Earlimart when they were in town last month, so this time we'll plug OFFICE. In their first ever video, the Chicago boy-girl glam-pop five-piece decided to insert themselves (huh huh) into clips from cheesy 80s porn. Despite the presence of Peter North, it's totally SFW.

Last night, in the face of too-cold-too-soon autumn weather, we corralled our friend (and friend of the Slog) Carollani into her badass newish car and headed over to the 5th Avenue Theater for the official opening night of --a Broadway-bound musical playing now through Sept. 30.

If there's anything we learned studying literature in college, it's that everything either comes from Shakespeare, Greek mythology or the Bible. Seattlest used to entertain herself by playing "From Whence Did That Allusion Come?" Yeah, we only had two friends in college.

One film you won't find on 2007's best-of lists is the first movie we caught on Saturday night, Nothing is Private, the debut feature from American Beauty-scribe/Six Feet Under-creator Alan Ball. It's not that his adaption of Alicia Erian's semi-autobiographical novel Towelhead--the coming-of-age story of a seriously messed-up thirteen-year-old girl living with her strict Lebanese father in early 90s suburban Texas -- is bad, just fundamentally flawed. We just didn't buy that an adolescent so used by nearly every person in her life would be so relatively undamaged, though we did appreciate Ball's restraint in not further abusing a victim via exploitative camerawork. Issues of post-traumatic stress disorder aside, big ups to the ensemble cast, including a hugely pregnant Toni Collette, a seriously conflicted army reservist/creepy racist Aaron Eckhart, and dynamic newcomer Summer Bishil as the young girl at the heart of this darkly comic, occasionally absurdist tale.

Seattlest isn’t really a discriminating diner. We don’t have a sophisticated palate. We don’t demand impeccable service. If we get what we order, the food is reasonably priced and tasty, and the wait staff leans friendly, we’re content. We do, however, expect near-perfection from new restaurants. And fair, unbiased criticism from those who evaluate them. After reading a “first look” review of new Ballard eatery Austin Cantina, and subsequently eating there Saturday night with our chicken fried steak-loving friend, we felt duped on both counts.

Well, that was spectacular. From the heady days of August 25th, when the M's were three up in the wild card and only one back in the division, had won two straight in Texas, when we were all excited about Blue-za-palooza or whatever the fuck it was...to now, after 11 losses in 12 games, when we're all pretty much in wait 'till next year mode.

We're not one of those people who hate "chemicals." Mmm, Diet Dr Pepper.

The first thing Mike Hargrove did after quitting the Mariners? He followed Alan Jackson's advice and bought a Ford truck. Jim Moore of the P-I talked to Hargrove's car salesperson:

Jerry Korum of Korum Ford in Puyallup read that the Hargroves always said when they retired, they would get a red truck, call it "Retired Red," load up their belongings and drive off into the sunset.

Continue reading "Old Managers Never Die, They Just Buy Expensive Trucks and Drive to Wine Country"

It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by poop. Finally D.C. contemplated taking Vermont's place as a state and marveled at the GOP lessons learned from the "Macaca Moment."

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing!

Vitals: Scott Edward Kazmir, 23 yo LHP. Born in Houston, Texas. 6-0, 170. 24-22, 3.75 career. 2-2, 3.83 in 2007. $424,300 salary.

Vitals: Gregory Alan Maddux, 41 yo RHP. Born in San Angelo, Texas. 6-0, 180. 336-205, 3.07 career. 3-2, 3.20 in 2007. $10,000,000 salary.

Vitals: Christopher Ryan Young, 27 yo RHP. Born in Dallas, Texas. 6-10, 260. 30-17, 3.84 career. 4-3, 3.11 in 2007. $600,000 salary.

The two winningest Mariner pitchers ever, Jamie Moyer and Randy Johnson, start against each other today. Moyer had 145 wins as a Mariner, Johnson had 130. Combined, the two pitched 3932 innings as Mariners.