News
 
Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

joshua ray walkerAs he prepares to take the stage at beloved Dallas listening room the Kessler, country artist Joshua Ray Walker is feeling terrible. Sipping a Topo Chico in the green room of his hometown’s venue, he’s sweaty and a little shaky—the side effects of a chemotherapy treatment completed just five days earlier. But, dressed in all black save for a pair of purple Lisa Frank Crocs, the 33-year-old Walker is getting ready to get onstage, nausea be damned. This Monday night show in June is Walker’s fifth consecutive monthly performance at the Kessler, all of which have sold out within days. Many audience members—childhood friends of Walker’s; fans who’ve been watching him play since he was performing for tiny crowds in Deep Ellum clubs—come back every single…

The post Country Artist Joshua Ray Walker Has Cancer. He’s Performing Anyway. appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

The first thing I notice on entering the store is the smell. It is an earthy sandalwood mixed with some type of citrus, perhaps sour lemon. It tells me I am in the right place, because I am here to buy cannabis. On my left sits a smoking lounge with four booths facing large windows that look out on an upscale South Austin shopping center. To my right, behind a glass window, is a demonstration grow room—more for show than large-scale cultivation. Straight ahead, on the back wall, a large lacquered-wood cabinet looks like something out of an old-fashioned drugstore. Its shelves hold a cannabinoid cornucopia: cookies, gummies, tinctures, machine-rolled joints, and glass containers half-filled with tightly clumped plant buds.Another customer enters and makes a…

The post Texas Has Basically Legalized Marijuana. We Have the Proof.  appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

TCR caddo lakeCaddo Lake State Park is home to towering cypresses and dangling Spanish moss—just the type of moody swamp celebrated in Ghostlight, Keith Carter’s latest photography book. In the latest dispatch from Texas Country Reporter, Carter explores the park from his canoe, camera in hand, reflecting on the allure of the Southern spaces he calls “otherworldly.”

The post Paddling Caddo Lake with Texas Photographer Keith Carter appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Out-of-state billionaires have dramatically increased their contributions to Texas politics over the past two election cycles. In the third installment of Answer Me This, senior editor Alex Samuels reviews reports from the state’s ethics commission to identify the five top donors and which campaigns their money helps influence.

The post Answer Me This: Why Is So Much Out-of-State Money Driving Texas Politics? appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Max Scherzer rangers slow start“I’m a high-adrenaline pitcher.”That was an unnecessary admission coming from someone whose demeanor throughout a Hall of Fame career has earned him the nickname “Mad Max.” But Max Scherzer’s intent last Saturday was to explain why his fastball velocity had been in the low nineties during rehab outings after averaging a tick faster last season.Scherzer’s heater reached a game-high 94.3 mph on the second batter last Sunday afternoon, in the ace’s long-awaited season debut for the Texas Rangers. He threw the pitch on a 0–2 count, and even though it crossed the plate well above the strike zone, Kansas City Royals phenom Bobby Witt Jr. (son of former Rangers pitcher Bobby Witt) chased it for the game’s first strikeout.The game was Scherzer’s first official appearance…

The post Don’t Give Up on the Texas Rangers’ Title Defense Just Yet appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

From the Texas Monthly team behind the podcasts Tom Brown’s Body, Stephenville, and Shane and Sally comes another true story of crime and justice in the Lone Star State.When Erik Maund was blackmailed about a secret affair, he didn’t go to the cops. He took matters into his own hands—but it didn’t go according to plan. In The Problem With Erik, host Katy Vine and producer Ana Worrel explore what came next: a perfect storm of secrets, mistaken identities, and tragic miscommunications that left two people dead.Look for The Problem With Erik on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

The post Preview: ‘The Problem With Erik’ True Crime Podcast appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

The Best, Worst, and So-Bad-They’re-Good Texas City and County FlagsTexas can lay claim to a truly iconic state flag, one we plaster on pickups and T-shirts and even pledge allegiance to in grade school. But did you know that dozens and dozens of Texas cities and counties also have flags? Neither did we until recently. But as soon as we found a website cataloging the flags, we fell into a rabbit hole of wonderment. The flags of Texas’s cities and counties run the gamut from good to bad to downright weird. The art of vexillology, the study of flags, is a passion for some and a chore for others, but it’s an important part of fostering a collective identity as a community. Who would Texans be, after all, without the iconic lone star? The best…

The post The Best, Worst, and So-Bad-They’re-Good Texas City and County Flags appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Taqueria GaelSilvia Hernandez, with her hair pulled back into a long ponytail, is visible from the kitchen only when she comes to the metal-framed pass, where the server grabs plated dishes to run to customers. Her glasses are precariously balanced on the lower bridge of her nose, but she snaps them back into place as she turns to attend to the cooking at her restaurant, Taqueria Gael, in Andrews.Crossing north five years ago was the easy part of her life’s journey, Hernandez says. Growing up in El Salto, a small, quiet town in the northern Mexican state of Durango, she worked long hours hawking street food and cooking in her parents’ restaurant. She opened her own business, a hot dog cart, as a teenager, and got…

The post This West Texas Taqueria Is Serving Some of the Best Mexican Food in Texas appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Erik Maund had it all. A wife and kids, a mansion by the Austin Country Club golf course, and an executive position in his family’s car-dealership business. But in March 2020, a message from a stranger put everything at risk. Someone knew Erik had had an affair with an escort, and they wanted money to keep quiet.But Erik didn’t pay the money, and he didn’t go to the cops. Instead, he paid Charlie Sheen’s former bodyguard and a couple of special ops–trained security contractors to confront the blackmailer. Things didn’t go according to plan.In The Problem With Erik, host Katy Vine and producer Ana Worrel tell the twisted story of what came next: a perfect storm of secrets, mistaken identities, and tragic miscommunications that left two…

The post Announcing Our New Podcast, ‘The Problem With Erik’ appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

The Fall of Roe/Dobbs anniversaryIn his beloved Chronicles of Narnia series, novelist and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis writes of the Dark Island at the end of the world, a place where dreams can come true. To readers and the novel’s voyagers alike, this sounds like paradise, until a man who has been trapped there explains to them, in terror, that this is a place where any dreams might come true—including nightmares. For the past few years, Texas has in some ways resembled that  Dark Island, where architects of dreams and nightmares alike are bringing outsized consequences to life. When Texas attorney Jonathan Mitchell filed an amicus brief on behalf of Texas Right to Life in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, few knew he was enshrining a vision of…

The post The Overturning of Abortion Rights Is a Religion Story Set in Texas appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!