Enjoying sweet perks of being Rockets play-by-play radio voice
When Matt Thomas took the job as the Rockets new play-byplay radio voice, he had no idea what sweet perk was waiting for him in Los Angeles.
Moments after finding his seat at the broadcast table in Staples Center last week, Thomas noticed a big plate of brownies sitting within arm’s reach.
“Go ahead, they’re for us,” said a member of the Lakers announcing team. “Dyan Cannon makes them for us. She’s been doing it for years.”
The actress is a longtime regular on celebrity row at Lakers games. She also bakes brownies for the players and coaches.
Thomas happens to be one of my stunt eaters for the Drivethru Gourmet column. So how were “Dyan Cannon’s Brownies?”
“They were delicious, just a simple cake brownie without fudge icing. That extra layer of chocolate is unnecessary,” Thomas said. “My broadcast position was 10 feet from Jack Nicholson. I didn’t have the nerve to ask if he brings baked goods for the broadcasters, too.”
I asked Thomas, how many brownies did you eat? “Two,” he said. Cue the laugh track. If Thomas confesses to two brownies, I’ll put the real over/ under number at 3½ … and I’m all in on the over.
Proving that beggars can be choosers, Thomas did have a minor criticism of Cannon’s brownies. They didn’t have any pecans or walnuts. “That was my only disappointment,” he said.
Let me get this straight. Thomas loves brownies, with nuts, yet no icing. Fascinating.
If that doesn’t qualify him for People magazine’s “25 Most Intriguing People of 2016,” the whole thing is rigged.
You know, it would only be fair if Lynn Wyatt sent a box of her famous homemade chocolate chunk cookies to Toyota Center when the Lakers visit Houston on Dec. 7.
Bourdain’s taste of Houston
Did you catch Anthony Bourdain’s portrait of Houston on his CNN “Parts Unknown” series Sunday? If you missed it, don’t worry, you can see segments from the show on cnn.com.
I’ve seen many profiles of Houston on TV, and I’ve been in a few of them, but Bourdain’s was the best. By far. The Convention and Visitors Bureau needs to get a DVD of Bourdain’s show and stick it in the press kit. At the end of the hour, I was as proud of this city as I’ve ever been. Bourdain got the focus just right, especially the color and contrast knobs. He featured Indian-American families, PakistaniAmerican cricket players, a Mexican-American quinceanera, Vietnamese-American shrimpers and students from 40 different countries learning how to speak English at Lee High School. All Houstonians now. Their stories were full of courage and warmth.
Pretty cool when radio DJ Sunil Thakkar says, “I love being an Indian in Houston. I consider India my motherland, but Houston is my home.”
Bourdain said, “Immigrants, refugees and non-white Americans have been transforming the food and culture of Houston for years,” adding that “minorities are now the majority.”
One thing everybody agreed on — we love warm weather yearround. Snow took a beating. In each segment, with a different ethnic group, Bourdain sat down for dinner.
He headed over to the “legendary, family-run Burns Original BBQ” on De Priest Street in Acres Homes for “East Texas pork and beef ribs and torpedo-sized baked potatoes filled with Cheddar cheese, chopped beef and homemade link sausage” and a discussion of Houston’s “slab culture” with Houstonborn hip-hop star Slim Thug. Bourdain said he ordered the baked potato despite his mother’s warning, “Never eat anything bigger than your head.”
Bourdain said that “Los Angeles has its low-riders, Houston has slab.”
After the show, I called Burns Original BBQ boss Cory Crawford for an explanation of “slab.”
“Slab is the name for all the old-school cars you saw in the show,” Crawford said. “They’re older cars with custom extended chrome rims. It’s a culture that originated in Houston and is spreading through other parts of Texas.
“The guys will customize their cars with special lighting and different slogans inside the trunk. They add superloud music systems and speakers so everybody can hear them from blocks away. These guys do some very imaginative things with their cars. When the car is done, it’s called a slab.”
Which reminds me, I’m overdue for a slab … of ribs.
Attendance will be taken
The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion is wrapping up its biggest, most successful season ever. With one event left, the 21st Children’s Festival on Nov. 12-13, The Woodlands venue already has drawn 518,000 guests to 46 Live Nation shows — both records for the pavilion. Since opening in 1990, the pavilion has averaged 32 concerts a year.
There were 18 soldout shows, also a record. Among the gate-crashers: Mumford & Sons, “I Love the ’90s featuring Salt-NPepa,” Dave Matthews Band, Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band, Journey with the Doobie Brothers, Twenty One Pilots, Meghan Trainor, Blink 182, the Dixie Chicks, Heart with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and Cheap Trick, Alabama Shakes and Luke Bryan.