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Alison Cook looks back at 1997: The Year That Bit

Continued from page 3

And herself as "our resident bimbo"
During a bit of morning-news happy talk, Channel 2 anchor Dominique Sachse, who is white, referred to black weathercaster Orelon Sidney as "our resident monkey."

No, but it got some great shots of those little green men
On a subcommittee trip to California, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee asked a NASA scientist if the Pathfinder probe had managed to photograph the flag that astronaut Neil Armstrong had left behind.

The All-Too-Lively Arts

He's planning to call Sheila Jackson Lee as a witness
Bill Kaysing, author of the 1976 book We Never Went to the Moon, sued astronaut James Lovell for calling his moon theory "wacky."

But first he has to brief Sheila Jackson Lee
Bruce Willis came to the Johnson Space Center to shoot the movie Armageddon, in which he plays a space pilot who must destroy an asteroid before it can hit Earth.

Lee Brown is thinking of offering him the convention center hotel contract
For a show at Rice University's art gallery, minimalist Sol LeWitt had masons mortar together an eight-foot-high, 4,400-pound tower of cinder blocks.

Billy Burge was just too damn hard
At a Rockets vs. Portland game in the (then) Summit, Rich Little sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the voices of George Bush, Ross Perot, Jack Nicholson and John Wayne.

Bring me the head of David Gockley
The Houston Grand Opera's multimedia production of Salome featured a "Dance of the Seven Veils" in which a screen of silk fabric split and fell apart, a scene in which Salome contemplated a severed head inside a large glass salad bowl, and an audience rush for the exits.

We're holding out for Anna Nicole Smith's breasts
For $1,750, interested parties could buy one of 75 signed and numbered bronze "life impressions" of heart surgeon Denton Cooley's hands, forceps and scalpel at-the-ready, made by Houston-based Bronze Memories Co.

Next show: the West Texas earthworks of Ted Kaczynski
The Hyde Park Gallery in Montrose mounted a one-man show of paintings by color-blind prisoner Elmer Wayne Henley, mass murderer Dean Corll's accomplice.

Thank god everyone was over at the Elmer Wayne Henley show
Denton's Good/Bad Art Collective failed to levitate an occupied lawn chair above a Montrose gallery using 30-plus helium balloons, thus ruining plans for a rooftop camera to beam images of the sitter's tennis shoes into the gallery, where Jimmy Buffett's "blew out my flip-flop, stepped on a pop top" looped endlessly.

She looks so cute when she's throwing up
Favorite son Kenny Rogers, the singer and naughty phone caller, proposed to his girlfriend with a poem that included the lines, "I wondered when I'd do this / I wondered what you'd say / I thought at first the perfect time / Might be on Christmas Day. / With lots of friends and family / to help us celebrate. / I slowly watched you catch the flu / then knew I'd have to wait."

He owes it all to the Kenny Rogers Poetry Workshop
Texas Democratic Chairman Bill White of Houston wrote an ode to Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, the gubernatorial candidate, that went in part: "Who's that young man walking toward us? / Along that beach with kids? / He gets closer and closer to our sight / Though he's always been in reach. / Closer still I see the man; / Garry Mauro is his name. / He's served this state in ideals well. / Texas will never be the same."

She was inspired by this year's mayoral race
Choreographer Nia Love staged a Buffalo Bayou Park performance in which dancers rolled in the mud while others unrolled mannequins from plastic wrap and simulated mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

After which Ben Stevenson had to be given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
The Fly Guys, a troupe of 60-foot-tall inflatable Gumby-like figures, "danced" to the Houston Symphony's performance at the much-hyped Power of Houston festival.

Plus The Collected Works of Bill White
At the sandcastle contest sponsored by the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects, entries included "The Bill Clinton Presidential Library" -- a large toilet bowl accessorized with a six-foot-long Playboy magazine and books titled Whitewater Rafting and Bedroom Flowers.

There's a reason for that, Doug
Channel 51 owner Doug Johnson announced that he'd dump his all-news format in favor of such old, off-network shows as Kojak, Quincy, Airwolf and Simon & Simon, saying, "It's stuff you can't get on cable."

Proving that pond water seeks its own level
Houston's D'Eva and Eric Redding, who got Anna Nicole Smith into Playboy and then wrote about it in Great Big Beautiful Doll, planned a book on topless clubs with Allen Starkie, the British genius behind Fergie: Her Secret Life.

Now George Strait is in therapy
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was reported to be talking to Jerry Seinfeld about performing there next year.

Our Distinguished Visitors

Sheila Jackson Lee is sorry, too
At the Juneteenth Blues Festival, R&B singer Bobby "Blue" Bland lamented the Rockets' failure to reach the Super Bowl this year.

Let's see, red for China, black for Bosnia...
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright liked Stelzig's Stetson hats so much that she bought three -- in red, brown and black.

He had reservations at the Redwood Grill
Actor Woody Harrelson, in town to demonstrate against Maxxam's razing old-growth forests, spent two hours in the Houston jail "on principle" when he was nabbed for not wearing a seat belt, then ponied up his fine "so I could have a Friday night."

Having already cornered the market in bullshit
Former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith, whose opposition to black voting rights led to a decade-long civil war, complained during a Houston visit to purchase bull semen that he has been unfairly characterized as a racist.

That's what we mean by "zero tolerance," Yankee!
The Allen House apartment rented by New York actor Tim Williams during a stint at the Alley was raided by the HPD, who discovered a spirited game of musical chairs in progress.

But they were really disappointed when he sang "Horse with No Name"
Channel 13 staffers excitedly donned Hawaiian shirts to commemorate a visit by Don Ho, but were crestfallen when the balladeer showed up in a dark blue blazer and turtleneck.

At least they hadn't worn their Hawaiian shirts
Goldie Hawn, shooting a TV movie in League City, disappointed a houseful of invited guests at Solero, downtown's trendiest of the trendy, when she failed to show for her dinner reservation.

Where the flavor du jour was Frozen Nut Brittle
Over 1,200 nudists descended on the Live Oak Resort northwest of Houston for a convention that included an ice-skating party and a trip to the Blue Bell ice cream factory.

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