Fertitta's 'True Blue' Backyard Bash Raises $1M for Houston Police

Fertitta's 'True Blue' Backyard Bash Raises $1M for Houston Police

Matt Clark, Julia Morales Clark, Laurie and Bret Sanders

TILMAN FERTITTA AND his family hosted the 15th annual True Blue fundraising fete benefiting the Houston Police Foundation. More than 600 supporters — clad in denim and beautiful shades of blue, naturally — helped make it a record-breaking event, with $1 million raised for the department's equipment and training.


This year's True Blue bash was Hawaiian-themed, and touted fire dancers, hula girls and drumming luau performers. And, of course, given the access to Landry's best and brightest, the food impressed: Restaurants like The Palm, Willie G's and Brenner's provided bites such as green papaya salad, bluffing tuna poke, teriyaki beef kabobs and more.

Meanwhile, HPD's robotic dog, Spot, roamed the grounds looking for photo ops, and wasn't even frightened during the casual-cool evening's finale — an eye-catching, ear-popping 15-minute fireworks display!

Blake Fertitta, Tilman Fertitta, Blayne Fertitta and Patrick Fertitta

Whitney and John Whitmire

Michael Kaplan and Garrett Kaplan

Twila Carter with Spot

Keith and Alice Mosing

Tim Phillips and Pat Mann Phillips

Monica and Russell Ybarra

Tilman Fertitta, Laura Ward, Police Chief Troy Finner

Paul and Kristina Somerville, Frances Moody Buzbee and Tony Buzbee

Sam Pena, Joan Huffman, Keith Lawyer

Sunny and Mac Haik

Parties

Sarah Sudhoff (photo by Katy Anderson)

SINCE THE 1970s, Houston’s cultural scene has only grown richer and more diverse thanks to the DIY spirit of its visual artists. As an alternative to the city’s major museums (which are awesome) and commercial galleries (again, awesome), they show their work and the work of their peers in ad-hoc, cooperative, artist-run spaces — spaces that range from the traditional white cube interiors, to private bungalows, to repurposed shipping containers.

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Art + Entertainment

Matthew Dirst (photo by Jacob Power)

FOR FANS OF early music — an often scholarly lot who aren’t afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves — bad-boy Baroque-era painter Caravaggio certainly nailed something in his dramatic 1595 painting, “The Musicians.” (Simon Schama talks about this in his TV series The Power of Art.) One look at his masterpiece, and you feel as if you’ve stumbled upon and surprised a roomful of dewy-eyed musicians, their youthful faces swollen with melancholy, with the lutist looking like he’s about ready to burst into tears before he’s even tuned his instrument. So no, you certainly don’t need a Ph.D. to enjoy and be moved by the music of Handel, G.P. Telemann, or J.S. Bach, but a little bit of scholarship never hurt anyone. Knowing the history of this music may even deepen your appreciation of it.

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