This years films include 133 features, with 89 of those world premieres and 70 first-time directors. And of course there are also parties and lots of free shit. My next-door neighbor in fact was asking me about the conference because he got hired by a big soft drink company to work the entire 10-days handing out promotional samples of their product. He proudly informed me that he was told he would “meet a lot of celebrities.” His gig will be home based out of Round Rock and I told him to expect heavy traffic. Regarding the celebrities, everyone you meet at SXSW is some kind of celebrity, because we’re all stardust baby.

A plethora of great panels are schedded daily and with so many films premiering it’s a natural that I’ll see something great while I miss something equally as awesome. If someone wanted to attend SXSW just to attend parties there’s more than enough of those to keep you vibrating around the clock.

In the first of a series of SXSW updates, here is a look at a couple of documentaries that I caught up with earlier this week. No No: A Dockumentary gives the viewer an unblinking look at the relation of baseball and drug use in the 1970s. The Legend of Shorty chronicles the life of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman the Mexican cartel kingpin who was arrested just a couple of weeks ago.

When you talk about being in the zone, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis (1945 – 2024) knows just what you mean. Ellis threw a major league no hitter while he was high on LSD. “I was gone, I was in the wind,” Ellis states in a series of interviews conducted before his passing six years ago. No No: A Dockumentary deals with specifics. Ellis became clean and sober after he’d retired from baseball and spent much of his time afterwards counseling other in sports as well as men in prison. But his life, which he reveals with candor, in the big leagues was fraught with drugs, rage and a one-time ERA of 2.10. At one point Ellis purposely hit the first three batters in a game with the Cincinnati Reds (including Pete Rose). The fourth and fifth batter ducked because they knew what was coming. Ellis was pulled from the game after the fifth batter and eventually put on suspension and then traded to the New York Yankees (where he then had one of his best record years). Fascinating at every turn, No No: A Dockumentary will appeal to fans of baseball as well as those looking for an intriguing story.

The Legend of Shorty feels literally ripped from the headlines and considering authorities apprehended El Chapo a few weeks ago this documentary is certainly current. At a press conference in Chicago law enforcement name El Chapo the Number One Enemy, a title that hasn’t been used since Al Capone. What is the truth about Shorty? At five-foot, six-inches El Chapo isn’t really that short.

At times the director and his team are seen getting into single engine planes, or vehicles in remote mountainous regions of Mexico and not knowing where they are traveling to. They know this is the only way they can make contact with those who will talk. Interview subjects include detractors and members of El Chapo’s inner circle. Is Guzman from “humble peasant stock” or is he a ruthless killer? Or, maybe a combination of both? The film concludes with footage of his arrest but then switches to a lengthy and heartfelt interview with El Chapo’s mother.

Communicating with producer Simon Chinn (whose credits include Searching For Sugarman, Man on Wire, and Project Nim) by email FPH was able to ask a few questions about The Legend of Shorty.

FPH: What structural changes were made to the film when El Chapo Guzman was arrested just a few weeks ago? And how long had the film been in production?

Simon Chinn: The film has been in production for the best part of two years.  Two intrepid filmmakers, Angus Macqueen and Guilermo Galdos, had set off on a journey into the forbidden lands of Mexico to try to find Guzman – apparently the most wanted drugs lord in the world. If they could get to him, what would that say about the combined efforts of the US and Mexican authorities to find a man who has supposedly been on the run for over a decade? In the end, Guzman decided not appear on camera for us – but that doesn’t mean we didn’t find him. In a way, Guzman’s recent arrest doesn’t change anything – as one of the interviewees in our film says: “they’ll get him when they need to”… His recent arrest is now seen by many as more of a triumph of public relations than anything.  The news of the arrest now ends our film but it is substantially the same film and packs a bigger punch as a result.

FPH: In The Legend of Shorty there are people who state that the authorities always knew where he was, and the description of his life in prison (until his escape in 2024) suggests that he was in control all the time anyway. Will his arrest really have any effect on drug smuggling from Mexico?

SC: I think it’s highly unlikely that much will change in Mexico as a result of El Chapo’s arrest. As many people in our film attest, the corruption and vested interests at all levels of Mexican government and society is too deep for this one event to have much effect.

FPH: We see the director and cameraman traveling by plane and by car with the suggestion being they don’t really know what’s going to happen at the end of the ride. How tangible was the danger these men were in while making the film?

SC: Angus and Guilermo always downplay the danger they were in – and, though it sounds paradoxical, they say they felt safest when they were the guests of the cartels.  In fact, there were moments of very tangible danger, like when they were being chased away from the tomb of El Chapo’s dead son by men sent by his ex-wife.  The reality is that you can’t go to the kinds of places Angus and Guilermo went without considerable courage – though they would never acknowledge this themselves and won’t thank me for saying so.  Very few, if any, filmmakers go to the places they went to and the access they have been able to get into this forbidden world is entirely without precedent.

Stay tuned throughout next week as Free Press Houston updates readers with must see events from SXSW.

– Michael Bergeron

Found footage appreciation is a sub-cultural phenomenon that developed long before the internet made weird clips something we all take for granted. In 2024, with nothing more than a few keystrokes (or touch screen taps) we can find years worth of freaky film on Youtube, archive.org or any number of other easily-accessible movie repositories. However, before Youtube, enthusiasts had to meet up and trade copied VHS tapes of their favorite oddball films to satisfy their cravings. Some of the more popular tapes travelled across the world via duplication and won large, international fan bases.

One example of this is chronicled the award-winning, 2024 documentary “Winnebago Man,” directed by and starring UT grad Ben Steinbauer. The found footage in question consists of outtakes from a decades-old Winnebago commercial, which depicted the smooth-talking narrator breaking character and having angry, profanity-filled outbursts over mistakes made in the midst of shooting. The beginning of “Winnebago Man” shows a series of interviews with all the different people who were captivated by the film. The latter half is a search for the man himself and their interactions with him. This documentary was my first encounter with the concept of found footage, and I discovered it in a rather pedestrian place, given the esoteric subject matter: Blockbuster.

To reiterate though, found footage is the dorky home movie collecting grime in the garage. Found footage is public access VHS forgotten by time. It defies classification. It is any piece of footage deemed outside the boundaries of norms for regular consumables (i.e. mainstream movies, TV, documentaries etc.). Found footage is everywhere, but few dust it off and appreciate its singular, madcap beauty. Luckily for curious Houstonians, and with many thanks to the Aurora Picture Show, our city was on the tour route for a travelling cinematographic sideshow called “Found Fiesta!”

On the evening of Jan. 10, the kind folks of St. Arnold’s Brewery opened their doors to “Found Fiesta!”, which is a celebration of the oddest and most interesting found artifacts that the participants can gather. The exhibition took place in the form of a competition, with randomly-chosen judges in the audience voting after each of the three rounds for the participants with the most fascinating finds.

The presenters broke down into three teams. First was Found Footage Festival (comprised of Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett), then North Carolina-based AV Geeks (Skip Elsheimer) and lastly, NPR contributor and co-creator of Found Magazine, Davy Rothbard. The first two teams dealt with found film, but Davy’s finds were in the form of text. These included love letters, hand-written lists and pop quizzes, just to name a few.

Found Footage Festival’s focus was a broad one, as the name might suggest. Highlights of their presentation included a montage of violent work safety videos, a seemingly-aroused crafting lady and a public access show about a man dancing in a speedo for a cluster of bewildered senior citizens. These were all extremely entertaining, but the final two rounds between AV Geeks and Found Magazine were easily the most memorable parts of the night.

The final round saw Davy present a strikingly poignant piece of found writing that seemed to take the audience by surprise, who (if they were like me) were probably expecting more ribaldry and silliness. This particular find was a letter written by a young man named Collin addressed to his mother. The words were bursting with emotion and were anything but funny. The letter included an abbreviated life story of the author who, according to his words, had a very difficult childhood, but had finally found love. Collin told his mother that he was finally happy–that he was no longer suicidal, and it was all because of this amazing woman who had miraculously walked into his life. Now, the contents of the letter alone would have been a drastic enough change to turn heads, given the light-hearted tenor of Davy’s presentation so far, however, the story of its discovery was even more interesting. Davy told the audience that it had been sent to him by a woman who found the letter in a tree, attached to a balloon. The tree stood in a cemetery. Once the audience put two and two together, there was definitely a tender moment to be had during this evening that had so far been dominated by laughter. It was a reminder that while many found artifacts are humorous, they do in fact offer insight into the lives of real, flesh and blood people with real struggles, feelings and experiences.

The final presenter in the very last round of the night was Skip, who would not be outdone by Davy’s heartwarming letter. He pulled out the big guns. Going for an emotional 180-degree turn, Skip played his last offering. Keeping with his focus on old educational films, Elsheimer presented us with one about teaching blind children the particulars of sexual anatomy. It was the film equivalent of being redirected to lemonparty.com (a not-so-nice website for those of you lucky enough not to fall prey to this prank). A palpable awkwardness filled the dimly-lit beer hall, but naturally it was so overpowering that we all burst into laughter.

Offensive? Yes. Well-timed? Also a yes. The hilarious juxtaposition of these last two pieces definitely captured the spirit of the night and maybe even the spirit of found footage appreciation in general. For a Monday night, it was quite the outing.

Photo by Madelyn Keith

According to a six-month investigation by reporter Emily DePrang, who published her findings in the July and September 2024 issues of the Texas Observer, it is extremely rare for HPD officers to get even a slap on the wrist for even the most egregious abuses of authority, even though 75% of complaints against officers come from their own supervisors or from fellow cops. Because of a flawed system of oversight, only 2% of all complaints net any kind of discipline, and that discipline looks more like PTO (paid time off) than anything else (3-5 day paid suspensions). I recommend reading both these articles for more details — they are available for free on the Observer’s website. (1, 2)

DePrang’s two-part series prompted what was billed as an open community forum between HPD reps, community activists, and the academic community at Texas Southern University on October 24. Few people were surprised when HPD steamrolled the event — they effectively silenced the community by talking at them rather than listening to them, evaded tough questions, and turned what was billed as a dialog into a grandstanding public relations monologue. HPD’s PR coup would have been a complete success, if not for the very vocal disgust expressed by many community members as they made loud exits.

The next day, October 25, I sent the following email to the top-ranking HPD representative on the panel, Assistant Chief Mattie Provost:

—

Dear Chief Provost,

Thank you for taking the time to meet with the community last night.  I write for Free Press Houston, I was there last night, and I will be publishing a short summary of the event.

I would like to follow up on a question that I posed not just to you, but the whole panel, though you are the only panelist who addressed it (and in what I would call a very quick and cursory manner at that).  My questions were/are:

I have seen the memorial to officers fallen in the line of duty in the HPD Museum at HPD headquarters at 1200 Travis.  I also see a large ziggurat called “Houston Police Officers Memorial” each time I drive down Memorial Drive.  Does any such memorial honoring victims of police brutality exist on any HPD property?

You did indeed answer this question, and I thank you for that.  Your answer was “To my knowledge, no such monument exists on any HPD property. Next question.”

There was a follow-up to this question, which was glossed over by you and the other panelists, however.  Would you mind addressing this now, please?

Would HPD consider naming a room in the HPD police academy for José Campos Torres?  If not, why not?

The only logical conclusion I can draw from this, in the absence of a full answer, is that HPD feels that its victims do not deserve commemoration.  If HPD’s mission is indeed “To protect and to serve,” yet we all acknowledge that officers are human and humans make mistakes, then what is the harm in honoring the victims of those mistakes?  And rather than “harm,” a step like this could possibly quell some tension between HPD and its critics. One other possible conclusion is that no such innocent victims of police brutality exist.  Please affirm if either of these is your intended implication.

I was not one of the audience members heckling you.  You asked for a civil dialog, but you did not fully engage with the question that was asked, so I am posing it to you again.

Thanks again for your time.  I look forward to your reply.

Best,

Harbeer Sandhu

—

José Campos Torres, in case you don’t know, was a 23-year-old Vietnam Veteran who was arrested by HPD for disorderly conduct on May 5, 1977. Torres was drunk and acting a fool and threatening people at a club on the East Side, so he was put under arrest and taken away. Sounds fair so far — it’s cops’ job to take people who can’t behave to jail and present them in court. But that’s not what happened.

Instead of taking Torres to jail, the arresting officers took him to a place they called “the Hole.” “The Hole” was a parking lot behind an abandoned brick building right above Buffalo Bayou where HPD were known to take suspects for a sound beating before booking them in jail. That night, while handcuffed, Torres was beat nearly to death by five officers while a sixth officer watched. He was in such bad shape that the jail would not accept him. Jail officials ordered the arresting officers to take their suspect to Ben Taub General Hospital for treatment before they could book him.

The officers didn’t want to waste their whole night in the emergency room only to get a drunk and disorderly charge, so they took Torres back to “the Hole” and uncuffed him. Then, one of them said, “Let’s see if this wetback can swim,” before shoving Torres into the bayou.

His body was found three days later. Two officers were charged in his murder, but they were convicted only of negligent homicide and given one year’s probation with a $1 fine. This egregious injustice sparked what came to be known as the Moody Park Uprising (or the Moody Park Riot, depending on whom you ask), an investigation by the FBI and federal charges against the officers, and some much-needed reform in HPD.  Gil Scott-Heron even wrote and recorded a poem about Torres, and there is currently an effort underway to install a historical marker in Moody Park to commemorate the Torres case.

So, back to my email following the “town hall” at TSU, eleven days after I emailed her, on November 5, Chief Provost finally replied:

—

Dear Mr. Sandhu,

First, let me apologize for my delayed response, but I wanted to get back with you on your questions.  Thank you for attending the recent community meeting.  HPD is not considering naming a room in the police academy for José Campos Torres.

Any further questions you have can be directed to a Public Information Officer at HPD at 713-308-3200.  Thank you for your interest in the Houston Police Department.

-Assistant Chief Mattie Provost

—

I considered this another blow-off and I was too busy to reply, plus she told me to talk to their PR department if I had any further questions, so why in the world would I reply? That’s why was surprised when, almost two weeks later, on November 18, this email from Assistant Chief Provost landed in my inbox:

—

I never heard back from you, did you receive my response?

How did you first get involved with activism?

As a child living in Mexico, I was first exposed to activism by my father. He was an active member of the miners’ union in the largest steel plant in Latin America in the early fifties. My maternal grandfather was also a social justice activist, and a teacher in a small rural town in northern Mexico. My father came from a blue collar working family, and my mother from middle and upper class family heritage. Adults around me made a distinction between families who lived in homes with dirt floors, from those with cement floors and from those with mosaic floors. In these terms, I realized very early that the world was full of injustice and mistreatment. However, my father and grandfather also clearly demonstrated that one had to fight it, and organize against it.

When we moved to the US, we were seen as a working class, immigrant, non-English speaking family of Mexican origin. Mexicans suffered overt discrimination in the mid-fifties in Texas. I remember not being allowed to eat in a restaurant on the road to Houston after crossing the border. Later as I started school, I would learn that the language, history and culture of Mexico, and Mexicans were objects of rejection and scorn. We were threatened with expulsion if we spoke Spanish in school (in rural areas, it was also corporal punishment). As children, we were only allowed to play in a single city park in our neighborhood in Magnolia. I remember the times when economic downturns increased our vulnerability to keep a roof over our heads and secure basic necessities. As a young girl, I confronted attitudes of discrimination against women, and the role of dominance given to men. Needless to say that by the time I was 13, I was sure that my life’s work was to eradicate social injustices.

My first practical experience came through my involvement with the Catholic Youth Organization at Immaculate Heart of Mary. A priest there urged us to become active in gathering food, clothes and donations for striking farm workers in Rio Grande City in 1966. Many community leaders in the neighborhood were active in support, and I remember they got together a bus of people to go down to support the strikers. We followed the 500-mile march to Austin on a daily basis in church and at home. The possibility that social movements lead to redress of injustices became a reality for me.

Soon, I was competing in high school oratory contests. My topic was the oppression and exploitation of the Mexican-origin population in the US. Every judge either gave me a high score or the lowest score. Prejudice and discrimination continued to be a way of life, but the growing social movements of the sixties were also waking many of us up into action.

Once in college, I first joined the Young Democrats, but quickly was recruited by the first grape and lettuce boycott organizers of the farmworker movement led by Cesar Chavez. This experience enriched my understanding of labor and social movements within a political and economic system that upheld the wealth and privilege of a minority of corporations and elites. At the same time, the Mexican American Youth Organization appeared on the scene at the University of Houston and in the neighborhood. The Chicano movement became a vehicle for fighting the oppression I had long experienced in Texas. I worked to establish an independent political party, the Raza Unida Party, and ran as state representative candidate. I supported the women’s liberation movement, opposed the war in Vietnam and supported revolutionary struggles that I had become aware of through my student activism. With the Black Student Union, we brought in Angela Davis and Stokley Carmichael. We also financed Cesar Chavez’s first trip to Houston.

What has been your experience with Houston, politically, and in terms of organizing here?

Houston is easy territory for organizing since the majority of its residents are largely unorganized and politically inactive. Any place you begin to facilitate a process for an organized, collective voice that challenges power opens the possibility of change. In my youth, I assisted in organizing in neighborhoods to get support of the lettuce/grape boycott, to create independent community action through “concientizacion,” organizing, mobilizing and through building independent political processes like the Raza Unida Party. When progressives were elected to the UH student government, we were able to move resources to bolster community initiatives and advance national or international movements. In the last 20 years, I have been focused on organizing in immigrant communities.

 As a woman in activism, what are some of the things you could teach male activists?

In the process of transforming reality, we transform ourselves, but some of the transformation has to be deliberate. We have grown up in a society of inequalities and the reinforcement of privilege. We all have to work to deconstruct these aspects of our world view, and examine actions that exclude and marginalize. This is true with respect to gender, and also social class, ethnicity, race and so many other areas of privilege. The revolutionary state is personal as well as societal. We can’t organize or agitate for any change if first we don’t work on changing the influence of elitist economic, political, and social structures on our own conduct and responses. This is difficult, but a necessary step if integrity is part of our definition of revolutionary action.

Living in a capitalist system how do you find harmony? Your daughter told me that you like to kick back and enjoy the TV show “Covert Affairs” — is it odd to find yourself cheering on a CIA officer, or do you just find a way to put aside what you know about the CIA?

You do not find harmony. One lives with those contradictions and fights its systemic impacts on a daily basis. A good example is how we enjoy entertainment that is produced by mega-corporations and incorporates the belief systems that reproduce inequalities. Even worse is the current practice of allowing mega corporations like Facebook or Twitter to own the history of revolutionary movements and messages on their own “terms and conditions.”

When I watch something like Covert Affairs, I do not forget it is fictitious, and I see it as reflective of the system of oppression. I like that the agent is a woman, and the fast pace of the genre of action movies. The content is always about the agent’s refusal to go along with the CIA as an institution, and she battles on her terms. At the same time, it offers a view into who is deemed “the enemy.” Most of the times, it is a Middle Eastern power or a Russian criminal agency, rarely has it been a revolutionary movement. Most striking is that the most serious “enemies” are rogue CIA elements within. But in the end, good triumphs over evil and the CIA is whole again. I never forget it is fiction.

However, I refuse to get on Facebook or Twitter or other social network sites because they legally appropriate what was the purview of the social movement or revolutionary organization. That to me is far more serious. It used to be that movements would donate their archives to public libraries for public view. Now they are instantly in public view, but are privately held by the mega corporation.

What are the projects you are working on in the Houston area, and what groups are you currently working with?

At this point, I am only working with the Houston United Prevention of Migrant Deaths Working Group to establish a response to increased deaths and disappearances of migrants in border areas. We helped establish the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, Texas (see southtexashumanrights.org).

How would you characterize the US treatment of immigrants?

Regulatory schemes that guarantee control, high profits and low wages, and the criminalization of human mobility, are essential for the neoliberal model of global economic development. Military integration in border policing, and the denial of rights of displaced populations domestically and internationally, reproduce a defacto system of slavery for marginalized economic and social sectors, particularly unauthorized international migrants. No one wants undocumented immigration except the human traffickers, unscrupulous employers and contractors who deliberately profit from it. Ever increasing measures that deny immigrants equal protection before the law have made everyday life difficult and oftentimes, life-threatening for millions. Any immigrant can testify that being undocumented is a huge problem. Driving a car without a license, health care, educational, workplace safety and family stability all come at a high cost, and human toll. Fear, exclusion, and suffering have become permanent aspects of immigrant life in our city and in the country.

Recently, there’s been some discussion in Houston on the question of letting cops participate in activism, and on activists being friends with cops in general. How do you think about that?

On this issue, I refer to Lenin. He clearly stated that revolutionary work has to take place in all institutions of society, no matter how repressive or backwards. Revolutions have triumphed when soldiers, police and other repressive forces split and support the revolution. So, I think individuals within repressive agencies can be progressives, and even revolutionaries.

What is your advice, or a lesson you would give to young activists in Houston?

Your greatest asset will be patience; the road toward fundamental change is long and arduous. One has to start where the people are; so sometimes, we have to crawl with the slowest and not run with the fastest. Study your reality, and don’t just act. Theory has to be woven in the course of the struggle, but practice is the determining factor in the creation of change. To rephrase educator Paulo Freire: People act upon their environment in order to critically reflect on their reality, and transform it through further action and critical reflection. Above all, be a Zapatista — “manda obedeciendo,” lead by obeying, listening to the people. Because the soul of organizing for social change is the people.

Art by Blake Jones

Modern American society has been carefully engineered to spare us unpleasantness at all costs. We have taken steps to eradicate the repugnant habit of smoking in public (and we’re starting to crack down on smoking in private as well), we put warning labels on practically every product imaginable (lest we be ambushed by the confounding traces of tree nut oils in a praline) and we have been trained to trade unbridled opinions for soft, innocuous euphemisms, especially in the messy areas of race, religion and gender.  America does not like to have its feelings hurt, even at the expense of honest discussion.

The examples of this ideological intolerance are with us every day, but they are rarely as obvious as a little-discussed meltdown that movie and TV writer Judd Apatow had in January about TV series “Girls.”

Now, before analyzing the events of this outburst, it is fair to point out that the show’s star, Lena Dunham has been the object of much unfair bullying. One of these instances, which the Huffington Post points out in its coverage of the “rage spiral,” was Howard Stern’s rude comments about Dunham’s appearance in Jan. 2024. Career shock jock, Howard Stern, attacked Dunham’s looks, referring to her as, “little fat girl who kinda looks like Jonah Hill.” And if that wasn’t outrageous enough, he also said of the Dunham’s nudity on “Girls,” “and she keeps taking her clothes off, and it kind of feels like rape.”

So perhaps that was part of the pretext for Apatow and other “Girls” personnel to explode like ten tons of gasoline-soaked dynamite at the simple question one critic posed.

However, the irony of this earlier exchange is that Dunham also forgave Stern,  stating that she was a fan of his, and that he had, in her words, earned his right to free speech. Those words might come back to haunt Dunham though, after her involvement in the following kerfluffle.

The exchange in question took place at a press stop for “Girls” cast and crew at the Television Critic’s Association. As the show’s executive producers Judd Apatow, Lena Dunham and Jennifer Konner took questions from the press, they stumbled hard over the following  (verbatim):

“I don’t get the purpose of all the nudity on the show — by [Dunham] in particularly. I feel like I’m walking into a trap where you go, ‘Nobody complains about all the nudity on Game of Thrones,’ but I get why they do it. They do it to be salacious and titillate people. And your character is often nude at random times for no reason.”

Read in isolation, away from the drama that ensued, and the cast/writers’ baggage, it’s hard to see why it would cause so much trouble. The Wrap’s Tim Molloy did not call Dunham “a little fat chick,” nor did he say that, “it kind of feels like rape.” There were no “slut-shaming” value judgements about how often the show characters have seemingly less-than-monogamous sex. The reporter did not even go as far to claim that the actions were a bad example for developing young adults. These comments extended to the show’s art and writing–areas that are normally pretty safe from the chilling effect of discussing race, religion and gender in public. Yet the reaction was one that would have looked more reasonable if directed at naive, openly-misogynous, “men’s rights” activists, rather than a critic asking questions about a show’s writing and presentation.

From the reportage, it looks as if the first words out Apatow’s mouth upon hearing the question were, “That was a very clumsily stated question that’s offensive on it’s face, and you should read it and discuss it with other people how you did that.”

But it didn’t stop there. Dunham jumped in with claws fully extended, taking the response to a whole new, personal level, “Yeah. It’s because it’s [nudity] a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive, I think, and I totally get it. If you are not into me, that’s your problem.” Nevermind the fact that Molloy never made comments about her body, weight or general attractiveness. Dunham’s words read exactly like they might have been penned a year prior, in response to Howard Stern’s far-more-pointed comments. Unlike Stern, who had “earned his right to free speech,” there would be no mercy for Molloy.

At another point, and the timeline is a bit difficult because there’s seemingly no video here, Apatow calls the question, “Sexist, offensive and misogynistic.” The Rubicon had been crossed. There is no doubt that the panel considered Molloy to be the living embodiment of every gender-based injustice any of them had ever witnessed.

The real pity of the entire incident is that Molloy never got the chance to turn the response back around and ask a resounding, “Why?!” Apatow’s outrage in particular was not dialectical–it was axiomatic. In Apatow’s eyes, Molloy should have known better than to ask a question that did not come in the form of an award or some glowing praise. Did Molloy not know that random nudity carries with it such artistic gravitas that it is above reproach? Did he not know that eating a cupcake in one’s birthday suit is the highest calling of a liberated, young actress? The gall!

Nudity, like any trope of writing, can be overused, and is certainly well within fair territory for a career TV critic. The replies really say more about the paranoid, thin-skinned temperament of the “Girls” writing and production team than it does about any sexism in Molloy. Apatow’s self-indulgent antics do nothing more than give doubters of real sexism more ammunition. Maybe if Molloy grovels enough–if it’s not too late–he can “earn” back his free speech.

Of all the things I would hear about Houston when I lived in any other city, “that’s a great place for comedy” wasn’t one of them.  It’s a shame that Houston plays such an important role in the history of current stand-up comedy, and no one shares that.  So, back in November, when I wrote about alternative comedy in Houston, the cast of characters I happened upon didn’t really get much of an introduction. There’s an old comedy saying, that the best comedians are just funny when they aren’t on stage, and the first comedian I could think of that embodies that is Brian Zeolla.  You may know Zeolla from when he was the doorman at Fitzgerald’s, with the stature of a typical door guy, one conversation with the Chicago native proves otherwise.  His brand of comedy is that of a storyteller, like a short form version of Marc Maron, but less whiny and all true.  Recently, I sat down for a Q & A with the comedian, and interestingly enough, also the close and personal friend to musician Kevine Devine.

FPH: So, you aren’t from here.  Where are you from?

BZ: Chicago, but I’ve lived in Houston for 15 years

FPH:  How long have you been doing stand-up?

BZ: Two years now.

FPH:  Why comedy?

BZ:  It’s a calling, that is a sickness really.  I grew up wanting to be director, or a writer, but I’m too lazy to do so.  Honestly, it’s just easier to talk on stage. Music, filmmaking, writing a book: Those are all things that I really wanted to do, but they aren’t fast enough.  Comedy is immediate.

FPH: Recently, I read an interview with longtime SNL writer Jim Downey, who described how committed to a bit Norm Macdonald was, sticking to it no matter how bad the outcome.  How committed are you to a bit?

BZ:  I’m hypersensitive to reality.  I approach it to not tell a lie.  If it’s not honest, I can’t sell it.  So, in my stand-up, I stick to reality.  That, I can commit to, so I draw from real life experiences to keep it as conversational and as real as possible.  That’s the only way it works for me.

FPH: How long will you hang on to a joke before discarding it from your set?

BZ: I toss the small jokes, just things that I’ve forgotten.  I don’t write, so if the jokes stay in my head, then they’re worth keeping and they stay in my act.  If a joke works at an open mic for instance,  I’ll keep working with it to form it into my act.  I have a bit that was one of the first jokes I wrote.  If it’s good it stays in my head and I just do it.  Once they aren’t worth doing, they sort of fall out of my mind and they usually don’t come back. For me, I start with a conversation then grow that and figure out where the jokes are, and write the jokes out of the conversation.  That’s what I do at the open mics, I work it out in my head, and 2 weeks later, I’m doing them at a show.

FPH: Favorite Comedian?

BZ: Past: Bill Cosby like from the “Himself” album era.   Current: Paul F Tompkins, Brendon Small

FPH: How do you measure a successful comedy career?

BZ:  Stand-up, writing animated shows, doing radio.  I know that radio doesn’t really seem to exist anymore, but music is such a big part of my life and I’d really like to mix it with comedy.  I really like the adult swim 15-minute shows where there’s that short time slot where you’re getting the joke across quickly.   That’s what I want, really.  To create a show like “Home Movies,” or “Mr. Show” where everything clicks with perfect chemistry. My endgame is that way with stand-up as well.  To be like Paul F. Tompkins and perform for real hardcore fans, not like Dane Cook at Madison Square Garden.

FPH: Do you have any Beef with the comedy scene here in Houston?

BZ:  Proactivity is a problem, across the board in many things here.  I grew up very DIY, with punk and zines, and 300 albums pressed.  I believed in those things, ‘cause it made me feel like I was part of something.  Houston, doesn’t have what I’m used to growing up with.  There’s no Ian Mackaye of comedy here.  Like, I created a show, because there needed to be a show.  I think the fact that there’s some magic in places like NYC is from that DIY ethic and we can do that here too.  Let’s just create stuff.  We can complain all we want, but we should create as well.

FPH: Who has been the best comedy teacher for you?

BZ: Bob Biggerstaff and Andy Huggins as well as opening for Neil Brennan. That was my first feature set, opening for someone I admire and who I think is hilarious. And it’s the biggest crowd I’ve performed in front of.

I think Brian’s best jokes are the confused and mundane ones.  You can catch Brian at most of the open mics like Rudyard’s on Mondays, occasionally Tuesdays at Warehouse Live, and Wednesdays at Han’s Bier Haus.  On March 3, you can see him at Rudyard’s for his Level Up show, which always has a great feature and a great headlining performer.  He’s definitely someone to see before he blows up outside of Houston, as a rising star in the world of comedy.

It’s a boy! And what a big boy he is! Shanti, our 23 year old female Asian elephant at the Houston Zoo gave birth to her 4th calf, Duncan! Shanti has been monitered for the past 11 months and has had late pregnancies in the past so this was no surprise as the Houston Zoo’s elephant care team and veterinary staff has prepared the process as well as 75 volunteers who took shifts during the overnight Elephant Birth Watch program to help ensure the safety of Shanti and her calf.

The Birth Watch volunteers and elephant keeper staff went through extensive training to learn the normal behaviors of Shanti and how to detect signs of labor such as one being, lifting her tail. Like humans, elephants must prepare the birth as well. She walks daily around the yard so that she does not gain that preggo weight that human moms dread after birth. Her progesterone levels are monitered daily to see if it drops. 7 February 2024 at 2:13am Duncan shined after being inside the womb for nearly two years. “After months of preparation and tender loving care, Shanti’s labor was very brief and the delivery was quick and easy for her.”, says Daryl Hoffman, the Houston Zoo’s large mammal curator. “The calf started nursing at 9 this morning.”, adds Hoffman.

At 385 pounds, Duncan will need all the nursing that he can get to catch up with his older brother Baylor, who is 3 years old. Baylor was named after Baylor College School of Medicine, who dedicated many hours on elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) which is an elephant herpesvirus that is contracted in the wild and in captivity. Mac, the Houston Zoo’s playful calf past away at 2 years old in 2024. Today, he would have been 8.

As for Duncan, just under 48 hours old and looking quite healthy. “In the first 90 minutes after his first meal we saw him nurse more than 15 times. Duncan has a very good apetite.”, says Hoffman. Just after the calf was born the zoo’s veterinary staff performed a neonatal exam. “We weighed and measured the calf and took a blood sample.”, says Houston Zoo’s chief veterinarian, Dr. Joe Flannagan. “Duncan is almost 40 inches at the shoulder.”, adds Flannagan. The elephant keepers will have the new calf and his mother under a 24 hour surveillance for the next few weeks to monitor health and behavior. While Houston is anxious to see our 385 pounds of love, the elephant barn will be temporarily closed to the public and will reopen once the keepers have seen signs that assure a healthy baby pachyderm and good behavior with the herd as they are slowly introduced to Duncan.

Duncan isn’t the only newborn at the Houston Zoo! 4 February at 1pm on Tuesday Tyra, a giraffe, delivered a healthy male calf. 30 January, a baby Nyala was born and can now be seen in the hoofstock area. On New Year’s Eve day a De Brazza’s Guenon was also born along with a baby bongo, pygmy marmosets, pygmy goats, and more!For more information on Duncan and the zooborns here at the Houston Zoo visit www.houstonzoo.org

The Progressive Forum is a non-profit, civic speaker organization in Houston dedicated to presenting and bringing us the great minds of people who do groundbreaking work to advance our culture and democracy. They have hosted guest speakers such as Rachel Maddow, Jane Goodall, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Last week their guest of honor was one of Texas’ own, activist and inspiration, Cecile Richards.

Growing up with a badass role model, former Texas Governor Ann Richards as her mother, it’s no surprise Cecile has accomplished so much. She founded the Texas Freedom Network, was founder and president of America Votes, was deputy chief of staff to U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi, and is currently the President of Planned Parenthood and an outspoken leader in the fight for reproductive rights and health care here in Texas and across America.

Cecile used this forum to discuss the wonderful advances women have made over the past 50 years and how access to health care, family planning, and birth control is central to women’s success and even shared tear-jerking stories of the patients Planned Parenthood has helped. She also highlighted the recent trend across America, led by extremists who have high-jacked the Republican Party, to defund family planning services and revoke women’s reproductive rights all together. She stated, “I look forward to the day true Republicans are in control of their party again.”

It was nice to see Cecile inherited her mother’s famous wit. After referencing Glenn Becks classic claim that only ‘hookers’ rely on Planned Parenthood, she boldly stated “Yes. Hookers do come to Planned Parenthood and we are proud to serve them.” She also called out Mike Huckabee for his most recent blundering mistake of alienating half the population when he ridiculously explained the popular use of oral contraception being due to women’s inability to control their libidos and needing  a creepy “Uncle Sugar” to fund them. She made a point to mention, in spite of the extreme conservative’s efforts, “thanks to the ACA, 27 million women get birth control fully paid for by their insurance plan.”

When asked if her mother passed on any advice that may be useful to Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte, who are running for Governor and Lt. Governor of Texas this year, she spoke about how “Tuff, Tuuuuuffff” her mom was when dealing with the double standards and often sexist criticism women face when running for public office, something Senator Wendy Davis is no stranger to, and stated “If Ann Richards, a divorced woman, a recovering alcoholic, a liberal can get elected as governor of Texas, then Wendy Davis can too.”

As we have seen recently, our anti-choice state leaders have developed a new, sneaky trend of adding abortion regulations and clinic restrictions to almost any bill or budget plan that passes their desk. Last summer in Texas, this tactic did not go unnoticed. With the help of the internet and social media, within hours the history-making People’s Filibuster was formed and hundreds- eventually thousands of activists repeatedly fled to the capitol to testify to try to prevent HB 2 from passing. When Wendy Davis took Texan’s voices to the Senate floor during her 11 hour personal filibuster, the whole world watched from their computers as it streamed live. Cecile discussed how our ability to communicate instantly has created a new face of activism and while not all of us are “burning bras or picketing, young people are taking action every day.”

The fight for reproductive rights and equal access to healthcare is far from over, but as Cecile said, the solutions are political and last year “Texas lit a fuse that is not going out”.

Be sure to keep your eye on Cecile Richards and the Progressive Forum for the opportunity to hear from more great minds and innovative leaders visiting Houston.