Image by The Young Adorable, Daetron Vargas DJ Mel Guests In For Radio On, TonightThursday, November 15PLUSH (617 Red River St.)10pm-2am, 21+ only, Free[info] Sure, Mel’s best known for his longstanding hip hop gig at Nasty’s every Monday, and then there are his quarterly Rock Tha Casbah parties which we here at the Ist like to get whiskey bent and sweat buckets. But he’s got more tricks up his sleeves than that. And tonight he’ll......

The Red Sox has permeated nearly every facet of Bostonist's lives. When they're not live-blogging the games, waxing poetic about the games, thanking Curt Schilling for his splendid work, or telling Dane Cook to watch his hair, they're watching certain presidential candidates hop on the Red Sox bandwagon (sorry, Gothamist). The Sox are so branded on the local brain that people are using the Series to spice up their sex lives. Speaking of spice, Bostonist......

You’ve probably seen Carlos Alazraqui as Deputy James Oswaldo Garcia on Reno 911!—but you’ve probably heard him, too. Alazraqui is a prolific voice-over actor, having performed as Néstor in Happy Feet, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, Rocko in Rocko’s Modern Life, Winslow T. Oddfellow in CatDog, and Goofy Goober in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. But in addition to acting, Carlos is also an accomplished stand-up comic. We spoke with Carlos before his run of shows......

Tonight, unless an unlikely eleventh-hour reprieve is granted, Texas will execute its 400th inmate since the state resumed the practice in 1982. Johnny Ray Conner32-year-old Johnny Ray Conner was convicted for murdering Houston resident Kathyanna Nguyen during a grocery store robbery in 1998. Nguyen, the store's owner, had been trapped behind the counter and was surrounded by a bulletproof enclosure; the killer reached his gun through the change slot and shot her in the head.......

Gangsters retire and move to Miami; rock stars never retire, but some do move to Nashville, have kids, and start making records by the numbers. Who wouldn’t? It’s not like you’d need to impress anybody anymore. Exhibit A: Icky Thump, the 6th LP from the Artists Formerly From Detroit, the White Stripes. Icky Thump follows a similar template as last year’s under-appreciated Get Behind Me Satan—open with an iconoclastic berserker of a single and spend......

Still not sure what to do for Mom for Mother's Day? No worries—there are plenty of filmtastic options. First, the Alamo Drafthouse is coming to your rescue with a Sabrina Mother’s Day Feast! The classic film starring Hepburn and Bogart (not the remake with Harrison Ford) is sure to be one of your mom’s faves, and even if it’s not, it will be soon—thanks to romantic tale and the delicious food set to accompany......

Reported just days ago on the their own blog, The Alamo Drafthouse revealed two bits of interest concerning their future transition down the street to take over the famous, and schizophrenic, Ritz on 6th. It's looking like the final day at The Original Alamo on 4th & Colorado will be Wednesday, June 27th, 2007. From the blog, "We'll have three shows, something special for 3 different crowds that we serve at the Alamo. We will......

EL VIOLÍN | THE VIOLIN (Mexico) Paramount Theater, 7 PM "Pure and emotive cinema that shakes you with its honesty" – Guillermo del Toro Cine Las Americas is honored to present Francisco Vargas Quevedo’s award winning drama El Violin at the historic Paramount Theater in downtown Austin. El Violin won the Knight Grand Jury Prize for Ibero-American Cinema at the Miami International Film Festival in 2007, where it was called “a perfect film, perfectly......

Shearwater Palo Santo Remastered, Expanded (Matador) The release of Palo Santo in 2006 marked Jonathan Meiburg's emergence from the shadow of the 'O' into full light. The songs are dense, revealing themselves slowly and carefully amidst moments of reflective sincerity and emotional cacophony with equal precision. Shearwater's sound is difficult to pin down, but the songs are always centered around Meiburg's unfaltering voice, a dark but lilting instrument that narrows the gap between fragility......

For the sixth year in a row, MovieMaker Magazine has ranked Austin in the top 3 of its “Top Ten U.S. Cities to Live and Make Movies” list. And though we’ve slipped a little this year (we sat at number two for the last two years, just behind New York City), we still beat the crap out of Shreveport, which feels pretty good. Moviemaker cited the “unique education and support that the [Austin] community fosters......

This Sunday, February 4th at 5:25pm central time, the world supremacy of American football for the 2006 season will be decided when the Colts of Indianapolis face the Bears of Chicago on the hallowed turf of Dolphin Stadium in Miami, Florida. Captained by the tenacious Brian Urlacher (a man who was known to bed a wench named Paris some fortnights ago), will the formidable Bears defense overcome late season gaffes and rise to this the......

The Austin Museum of Digital Art (AMODA) returns to The Mohawk tonight to host Digital Showcase 40. We'll let them tell you about tonight's show: The headliner for this month's Digital Showcase is DAT Politics from France. Over the last six years, this trio has released six albums packed with distorted bleeps, 8-bit video game melodies, cute pet recordings, and other sonic oddities. Their latest album, ‘Wow Twist’, was recently released on Chicks On Speed......

Thanksgiving: a time for celebrating family, eating food, and of course, watching TV. Well, we're here to recommend some options: The given: "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade", 9am, NBC/KXAN. The random: Twelve hours of Doris Day films on TCM, starting at 5am. Pigs at Thanksgiving?: Babe on NBC/KXAN, 2pm. Katie pre-TomKat: One of our favorite Thanksgiving films, Pieces of April, is on IFC at 4:15pm. What Not to Wear on Thanksgiving: What Not to Wear......

Zagat's 2007 America's Top Restaurants Survey is out and although the setup on this one begs for an immediate rimshot, it's true - we love eating out. In fact, only Houston residents eat out with more frequency *snicker* than Austinites. Hungry Houstonians are eating out an average of 4.2 meals per week while residents of Austin and Dallas/Ft. Worth eat out an average of 4 times per week. Trailing in weekly eating-out outings are......

The final event of the National Poetry Slam is Saturday Night, 7-10pm, at the Palmer Events Center. TeamAustin/NeoSoul, in their first NPS ever, handily made it to Finals, so come out and root for our hometown talent to win the Team Championship! Competing teams are: DC-Baltimore Denver CO Miami FL TeamAustin/NeoSoul NYC/LouderARTS Venue and Ticket Info Palmer Events Center 900 Barton Spring Road, 404-4500 $25.50 general admission - purchase online......

BEAT is back, and tonight they’re taking over Firehouse Lounge, where Mike & Ike (if you join imeem, you can vote for Mike & Ike and perhaps even garner them a trip to The Winter Music Conference in Miami) will be showcasing their mic handling magnificence. Airborne Illness is opening up, and after Mike & Ike, The Table Manners Crew will be taking it from late into to the late night. Don’t sleep, something......

New releases by Comets on Fire, Matthew Friedberger, Midlake, and more...

Even as the stores sport back to school sales (which depress us, even now), summer lingers on your friends the -ists. This week's collection of links provides some of the best, worst, and oddest bits of summer fun. So, bring your laptop up onto the roof, make yourself an umbrella drink or ten, and enjoy this week's choice posts from across the Gothamist network. Torontoist (where it's 75 degrees F as of this writing)......

We -ists are an eclectic bunch, but there's a couple of things we all love: famous people, social causes, and wacky local facts. Join us as we starf**k, get virtuous, and learn across the -ist network! Austinist starts us off right by filling the famous person quota by interviewing Lewis Black, covers the social cause with a non-profit car sharing company, and gives us more wacky local facts than we can handle with Austin by......

Well, we thought it was probably just speculation that Fidel Castro had been called up to play shortstop for the Devil's All-Stars, and it appears it was. However, the Miami Herald has a piece today highlighting the fact that Fidel's little brother, 75 year-old Raul Castro, has been taking on a more public persona of late, in an effot, most believe, to bridge a smooth transition from his brother's regime to his. [From the Hearald]......

Sometimes you need to clean yourself up, get serious, and move in with daddie for a few months before you head to Latin America for a new gig. The District bid's Jenna Bush adios. D.C.-based television shows have an elderly audience and DCist has some suggestions to fix that. They're also throwing Butterstick the panda bear a birthday bash. Yeah, we may have a few issues with our World Cup broadcasters here, but this guy......

The NBA Draft takes place tonight in New York City, and besides the annual fun of watching young athletes in their Sunday finest (we’re looking at you, Chuck Person) as they walk up to the podium to shake hands with the commish and awkwardly don their new teams caps, Texas basketball fans will be watching intently to see what happens with their teams, as well as the fates of former Longhorns LaMarcus Aldridge, P.J. Tucker......

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week, becomin the only Ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. You can protest someone at his office, sure, but when the whistle blows at the end of the day can you follow him home? D.C. has sports fans, apparently, and elephants aren't really cut out for zoos. There's this trick where you can read information from a......

San Francisco is proud host of a new reality show called "How to Get the Guy" that's unfortunately not a descendant of Will and Grace, Queer Eye, The L Word, American Idol etc. Also a biodefence lab is coming to the East Bay and SFist teaches wine pairing. Getting on the wrong train sucks. Getting on the wrong train and becoming the victim of what will later be described as a "stabbing spree" really sucks.......

LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other. Where do ist editors go when they hang up the 'editorial we'? They take on MySpace, apparently. At least Ben Brown does. Austinist reminds us of the just rewards of less savory careers this week and then they witness the Arctic Monkeys and We......

Clean out that purse of yours. Go on, just do it. Notice all of those candy wrappers stuffed in the hidden side pockets? Someone decided to put those to use. That certain "someone" consists of the creative team behind Ecoist, the planet friendly, fashion forward company based on the design of three women from Mexico, Chile, and Miami. Made from wrappers that are misprinted or just discarded, these bags are little gems that need......

With national gas prices soaring past that dreadful $3-per-gallon mark, most of us at Austinist have had to rework our upcoming roadtrip plans. But what about our city's vast legions of musicians? Summer's a great opportunity for bands to get out for a bit of stateside touring, but it's hard enough for most indepedent artists simply break even -- especially when you've rented a jalopy of a gas-guzzling touring van to house all those damned......

Natasha Tsakos’ “manifesto” begins as follows: “I am alone, on a path leading toward a little light, walking with my suitcase and my theater. Together we create worlds of wonder, reverie, and contemplation.” And you know what? She’s not just sayin’ that. This past Saturday we saw Tsakos’ UPWAKE Part III, the final installment in a series of performances that follow Zero, a toon character, on an ultra-modern journey to dreamland and beyond. Tsakos......

It's a mad, mad workd out there, folks. And here's the proof... SFist commenters pose for before and aftershocks when the mayor commemorates a 1906 earthquake...at 4:30 in the morning. A hot tip on the Chronicle vending machines comes in and the SFist war correspondent risks life and limb to post this dispatch from the frontlines. Houstonist announces their new Cops spinoff "World's Funniest Tazer Videos" and the possible cancellation of their pervs' "World's Grossest......

This Friday and Saturday, Women & Their Work presents Natasha Tsakos' "UpWake Part III" at the Carver Museum. This multi-media dance performance combines clowning, dance, and dreams with a backdrop consisting of projected digital animations and an original soundtrack. "Up Wake Part III," after the successes of Parts I and II that were commissioned by the Miami Light Project, is the last installment of the Zero Trilogy. The play follows Zero, a toon character, throughout......