News

Alison Cook looks back at 1997: The Year That Bit

Continued from page 8

No, money walks and something else talks
Olympics-obsessed Councilman John Kelley kept right on feuding with Jim "Mattress Mac" McIngvale over who was best qualified to snag the games for Houston, a tussle in which Kelley called Mac "a furniture salesman" and Mac said of Kelley, "Money talks and something else walks."

Little Bo Peep has hired Rudy T's lawyer to sue for trademark infringement
In the wake of the Heaven's Gate cult suicides, reports showed that onetime Houstonian Marshall Herff Applewhite had taken his mystical turn after meeting astrology-obsessed Houston nurse Bonnie Lu Trousdale Nettles -- after which the couple, known to their followers as "The Two" or "Bo and Peep," spread the gospel that they were aliens in human bodies awaiting retrieval by a spaceship.

Our Friends The Animals

They're worried about the ozone levels
Experts reported that as killer bees make their way north in Texas, for some reason they turn left just shy of Houston.

Just a colder version of Channelview
A new species of pink, frilly-legged worms was discovered living in mounds of methane-rich ice on the Gulf of Mexico's floor -- a hostile environment with no light, little oxygen and a constant presence of sulfides, gas and concentrated brine.

No, he mistook his reflection for Lloyd Kelley
Police responding to a burglary call at a Stafford store found the front door smashed and a billy goat ramming the window. Said one cop: "He probably thought he was butting another male goat."

Does Ken Hoffman have an alibi?
After the first black bear in a generation was spotted in Montgomery County, local ranchers blamed it for devouring calves and leaving just the rib cages.

First the mayor's race, now this
One of the worst infestations of forest tent caterpillars in years sent a thick rain of caterpillar excrement onto the decks, patios, sidewalks and lawns of Missouri City.

With some nice forest tent caterpillars for dessert
Rice University administrators, staff, maintenance workers and students lured a three-foot iguana down from a campus tree by laying out a vegetable buffet.

With practice, they hoped to become Houston voters
A flock of wayward Muscovy ducks kept loitering on the Southwest Freeway in Sugar Land, resisting attempts to relocate them to a safer home, even after a motorist mowed down ten of them.

VIDEO CORNER

Now the manager knows what "deep shit" means
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission investigated Rowdy's nightclub on I-45 near Spring after a customer reported that she had discovered a video camera -- which was connected to a monitor in the manager's office -- hidden behind an air-conditioning vent over the women's toilet.

The manager of Rowdy's wanted a copy
Former HISD teacher Michael Madison filed suit claiming he was fired after a videotape he made at Attucks Middle School -- which showed one student urinating on a row of lockers and others fighting and racing down hallways -- was shown on a local news broadcast and later on CNN.

The good news: Guatemala, China and Peru have ordered copies
After a training video shot during a disturbance at the Brazoria County Detention Center showed prostrate, unresisting inmates being kicked in the groin, prodded with stun guns and struck with batons by guards and sheriff's deputies -- not to mention bitten by German shepherds -- the state of Missouri withdrew the 415 prisoners it was paying to house there.

Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson made their nude video for similar reasons
Houston product Farrah Fawcett made a pay-per-view video in which she writhed nude across a screen, using her paint-splattered body as a brush, explaining, "I wanted to combine my art and stay true to my artistic conviction. This reminded me how much I love art."

Now Ben Reyes wants one, too
After Channel 13 aired video of Controller Lloyd Kelley cavorting at an amusement park and gardening at home during work hours, he tried unsuccessfully to get the station to sign what he called a "fair reporting agreement."

Disregarding Satan's advice to use a pitchfork
Retired Coast Guard lieutenant Joseph Sybille got a year's probation for beating his neighbor 11 times with a shovel -- an attack graphically recorded by a surveillance camera the victim had installed during the pair's long-simmering feud over a fence.

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