Amazing! Our May (Willie Nelson) and June (BBQ) covers won their respective categories in this year’s Best Cover Competition put on by the American Society of Magazine Editors. New York — that would be Adam Freakin’ Moss — took home four awards outright and split a fifth, but we won the second-most; no other mag won more than one. Our art director, T.J. Tucker, and his incredible staff deserve all the credit. They are truly a fine and talented bunch, and we are lucky to work alongside them every month.

The jury’s write-ups:

BEST CELEBRITY COVER

No celebrity in Texas is as iconic as Willie Nelson. This issue marked the seventh time Texas Monthly featured Nelson on the cover—more times than anyone else. Over the years, the covers watched him go from being a breakout country sensation in 1976, to a tax-evader in 1991, to a senior citizen in 1998, to a symbol of Texan humor in 2002 (he and Kinky Friedman posed for a riff on the painting “American Gothic”). When it came time to design the cover of this issue, which commemorates his 75th birthday with a massive oral history, Nelson’s longevity posed a challenge: What could be done that had not been done before? Ultimately, when photographer Platon came back from Nelson’s ranch with this incredible shot, the decision was made. Cover type seemed irrelevant: For the newsstand, a small “Willie at 75: The Oral History” was placed to the right of his face; subscribers received a cover with no type at all. This turned out to be unquestionably the most popular Nelson cover for the magazine. Within a week it was besieged with requests for posters or prints of the image, a sure sign that it had managed to capture the musician’s incomparable celebrity.

BEST PERSONAL SERVICE COVER

Every five years Texas Monthly goes out on a limb and proclaims the 50 best barbecue joints in Texas. The BBQ issue is the magazine’s most popular (and controversial) service franchise. This year it rocked the boat by picking a little known restaurant for the number one spot. The boldness of that decision led the magazine to make equally bold moves on the cover. Last time out it had featured the portly pitmaster at one of the state’s most venerable restaurants, grinning as he sliced a sausage. This time, TM elected to use something even simpler—a pile of smoked meats on a butcher’s block with a carving knife plunged in a brisket. The coverline is presented as an iconic BBQ joint neon light and hung on a beat-up wall; the sign’s electrical cord shows behind the magazine’s logo to capture the down-to-earth feel of barbecue. The spatial dynamics of the room created a perfect hierarchy of type, with the secondary coverlines sitting in the shadowy area on the front of the meat block. Not surprisingly, this is on track to be the magazine’s best-selling BBQ cover ever.

The actor, new dad, budding clothing magnate, and four-time TEXAS MONTHLY cover boy is my guest this week. Click play to watch what is our seventh-season premiere (if you can believe it — I can’t).

The transition to a world in which I’m no longer the guy presiding over the content of this magazine on a day to day basis is closer to complete. Yesterday I named Jake Silverstein, a senior editor since joining our staff two years ago, as our next editor — only the fourth person to assume that title in the 35 years since we launched. The Fulbright Scholar, Wesleyan and Michener Center grad, award-winning writer, and Harper’s contributing editor will walk in the shoes of the estimable Bill Broyles and Greg Curtis, and he’s more than up to figuring out what the next iteration of this still-great publication looks like. But he’s not the only one charged with that task. Yesterday I also named Brian Sweany, the literal boy scout from Plano who’s been our articles editor for three-plus years and first joined our staff in 1996, to a new position: editor, Special Projects. In that capacity, the UNT and UTSA grad will be working closely with me on the growth areas of the business: editorial brand extensions and mobile and events and broadcast and a host of other things we haven’t even thought of yet. In the 21st century, we have to be all about multiple platforms and multiple distribution channels for the various forms of journalism we create, and Brian will live at the center of that new and exciting activity while continuing to edit and write and be an integral part of everything we do. Most businesses are lucky to have one guy qualified and eager to lead. We had — and have — two. Get to know them. They’re the future of TEXAS MONTHLY.

Today I learned that two of our 2008 covers — May (Willie) and June (BBQ) — are finalists in the American Society of Editors’ annual contest honoring the best covers of the year. Combined with our newsstand success of late, I’d say we’ve found a sliver of good news in this &”*%$! business of ours.

Unfortunately, it is warmer today, and the paranoia is also increasing with the heat. There are rumors flying left and right, which, since this is the internet, I will repeat, but remind the reader that they are unsubstantiated and, most likely, completely untrue, just part of the narrative that’s taken root here with all the boredom. One rumor is that the bioterrorism lab at UTMB in Galveston is harboring some terrible secret about a leak–lots of bad germs there–and the other is that a morgue in Galveston is keeping mum about twelve bodies for reasons that remain…unexplained. The actual death toll in Galveston and its environs seems a more logical question for discussion. An AP story was highlighted on my AOL homepage today, part of which I’ve pasted below:

Ike’s Missing May Have Just Washed Away
By JUAN A. LOZANO and MONICA RHOR

GALVESTON, Texas (Sept. 18) - The death toll from Hurricane Ike is remarkably low so far, considering that legions of people stayed behind as the storm obliterated row after row of homes along the Texas coast. But officials suspect there are more victims out there and say some might simply have been swept out to sea.

Exactly how many is anybody’s guess, because authorities had no sure way to track those who defied evacuation orders. And the number of people reported missing after the storm, whose death toll stands at 17 in Texas, is fluctuating.

Otherwise, people here in Houston are struggling for normalcy, and you hear the phrase “We were/are so lucky” quite often. (That’s what I think, about 100 times a day) But when it’s bad, it’s bad–a neighbor up the street had the roof torn off his kitchen, and water poured into his son’s bedroom. Another friend swears she had a tornado in her living room, the wind was so strong and so destructive. There is looting going unreported so far, particularly in the barrio in near north Houston–according to one friend, looters are riding around in taxis, and stopping at empty houses, breaking in, and then leaving– by taxi. Maybe that 9 pm curfew should be reinstated–it was extended to midnight two days ago.

The traffic is getting tedious too. Power on Westheimer still hasn’t been completely restored, which means one of Houston’s major thoroughfares is currently a series of four way stops, with a few functioning lights thrown in to make your brain fritz. In other words, you stop and go at a few lights that are out, then stop and go at a few a blinking red lights, and then stop and go at a functioning red light–into oncoming traffic. Or, someone forgets the rules of four way stops, and so no one knows when to go if everyone arrives at the same time. I know, the one on the right has the right of way, but tell that to Houstonians.

Thought I would post a few photos of the neighborhood, before and after Ike. The mood in my part of town is improving–we went out to dinner last night and people were celebrating the re-opening of a local restaurant as if it were the 4th of July. Elsewhere, of course, it’s disaster–1.5 million people are still without power. The weather, however, is still holding, which makes it all so much better.

Second most creative window boarding--with sailing canvas and eye hooks. Ahoy!

Most creative window boarding--recycled gingermen yard art, from Christmas.

Skylane Apartments, pre-Ike.

Skylane Apartments, post Ike.

Heights neighbor Matt Hartzell, preparing to dig leaves from storm sewers and save the neighborhood from flooding.

Starving Target shopper trying to buy last cans

of soup. Note empty beer shelves, behind her.

Fallen trees and debris, with tree goddess (center,

rear) throwing up her arms.

Bayland Street, Woodland Heights’ main street, carpeted

in oak debris.

Here’s an excerpt from a story you might have missed from the New York Times, by Robert Hartwig, about insurance. Don’t read this if the roof was just torn off your house by Ike.

Coastal insurance markets in Texas were exhibiting signs of strain years before Ike formed in the eastern Atlantic nearly two weeks ago. Growth along some stretches of the Texas coast has been explosive in recent years. Thousands of new homes, condominiums and business have been built. Between 2004 and year-end 2007, the value of insured coastal property in Texas increased by $155 billion, from $740 billion to $895 billion, a gain of 21 percent, according to the catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide. Eighty-five percent of the $895 billion in value is concentrated in the state’s five northernmost coastal counties, including Harris County (Houston). In Galveston alone, there was $2.3 billion in new residential, commercial and public construction underway in 2007 , including more than 6,500 residential units, some valued at more than $1 million apiece.

TWIA’s resources going into Ike are already somewhat diminished because of Hurricane Dolly, which struck the state in July. That storm is expected force TWIA to spend $200 million of its $300 in its trust fund and to assess insurers $100 million.

Guess what? The TWIA is pretty much broke now. This story was written before the storm.

Hurrication.

Sorry, no upside down exclamation points. Spent the morning handing out water and ice at a church up the street–I had to leave before the food arrived. (It was supposed to be there at 9, and wasn’t there at noon, when I left.) There was a line for drivers and a line for people on foot, both snaked around my neighborhood for blocks. The weather has been blessedly beautiful–a good thing when you have to stand in the sun for hours to get 24 bottles of water and two bags of ice. I thought the rescue operation went pretty well, except for the food delay, and enjoyed myself because it was a neighborhood operation.

Our friend Dave was in charge, in reflector sunglasses, vest, and some kind of yellow gimme cap with some kind of official designation I never could determine. Tattooed kids who were normally dissed and/or fearedby the white, wealthier parents showed up to help, as did some of the retirees, and some of the kids my son used to go to school with, all grown up. Lots of sentimental ink has been spilled since Saturday about how everyone feels while pitching in to help others, so I will spare you, but it was great to meet up with people I hadn’t seen in years because our lives had taken different paths. Interesting, too, to see how normally reserved people find their inner five star general when given some authority.

The car line for ice had the feel of a boot camp crossed with an amusement park ride, as thirsty drivers were put through a gantlet of orange cones and neighborhood sergeants good naturedly bellowing for them to “Pull up!” “Pull out!” and “Hurry up!” If only one of them had been in charge of the war in Iraq. At least a million people are still without power, and judging from the car lines, it’s all kinds. I saw Range Rovers next to real junkers, and a great old guy with a long beard riding a motorcycle in his short shorts and cowboy boots, carrying the ice and water on his lap.

The line for the food was made up mostly of poor families, and a smattering of street people, which reminded me that, in better times, Houston doesn’t do such a great job of attending to their needs. The food, by the way, is boxes of MREs, the same stuff that the soldiers use in Iraq. High calorie count, and not supposed to be so bad. Report on Taste Test to come.

Later in the day I went to Central Market, which had e-mailed me to announce it had re-opened. Everything was pretty normal inside, if you discounted the giant outdoor generators imported from other cities. A few shortages–eggs, alas–but they were well stocked on organic cereal, granola yogurt, whole Italian loaves and wine. (As an aside, the amount of Post-Ike drinking is something to behold. Yes, people without power are sensibly soothing themselves with backyard barbeques, but the number of drunk people I’ve spoken with in the last few days is truly startling. I guess there will be fewer heart attacks from all the wine drinking, but the hot air level is increasing exponentially. Still, it was pretty funny when one of my neighbors came by late last night, after a bit of drinking. to complain about another teenage freeloader who had eaten all her hoarded food. She referred to him as “The Locust.” )

Central Market was actually more of a madhouse than the scene at the church this morning. People rushed in with coolers in their carts–smart retailers, HEB was also selling the styrofoam boxes inside, along with spring water–and scarfed up produce like contestants on Supermarket Sweep. “Just like any other day,” a friend I ran into cracked.

My friend Nancy called from River Oaks to say they wouldn’t have power for two to three weeks. I’m sorry for Nancy, but somehow I can’t help feeling just a twinge of something like glee that the city’s wealthiest enclave is suffering (?) while some poorer neighborhoods already have their power back on. I hope this doesn’t cost Bill White some election down the road…

What happens if you have a desperate need to watch Monday night football, but you, along with hundreds of thousands of Houstonians, have no cable? If you are a neighbor of mine, you convince a friend who happens to drive a mobile command unit for a telephone company to pull up in front of your house, just for the evening, and set the big screen tv above his windshield on the game. Tomorrow he heads for repairs to the south.

An hour ago, a man walked up to Sam and offered him $30 for the $18 pizza he was carrying to the car–the line to buy pizza was just too long for him to bear, I guess. The few restaurants that are open are mobbed. Not many people have food at home at this point–even the ones who laid in supplies before the storm– and the ones that do are sick of staying in the house. My husband and I had planned to go out to dinner, but then realized we couldn’t do it and get back home before the 9 pm curfew.

There is a very strange looking high rise on the Allen Parkway at Waugh–strange looking in good times because it has this weird crown-like thing on top. It’s even stranger now, in the dark, with no lights. Looks like an angry queen.

As I write this, five teenagers downstairs are reading David Sedaris aloud. At least they are reading, right? “I just wanna go back to school,” one of them said. “Me too,” another answered. Hey, me too! My favorite moment this morning was when I went to borrow a rake from my neighbor Steve to finish cleaning the yard, and Sam’s friend Jenny called across the street:  ”Mimi, do you have a hairbrush?” 

I think we may be kind of close to the edge here, even though, compared to Galveston, Houston is paradise, especially today, with the cool front and the clear blue sky. I actually turned off the a/c and am airing out the house, which makes it that much easier to hear all the chainsaws. I personally reached the breaking point early this afternoon when, having commandeered four guys from El Salvador to chop up and stack the huge tree sweet gum branches in the back yard–he who has the chainsaw is king, or at least can charge $150–I spent an hour driving around looking for…cash. I’d gotten $100 before the storm, but by today, I couldn’t come up with $150, and neither could any cash machine within a five to ten mile radius. None of them seem to be on; after all, they run on electricity. With the gas gauge in my Honda dwindling, I finally called Sam, who had returned home from yet another social engagement and who could ask the guys to take a check. They said Si. 

Cell phone service is not very good–most calls don’t go through–and there are a lot of very testy people in gas lines, or lining up with red plastic gas cans to fill up. Many of the stations have cops directing traffic, and I heard a guy complaining on the radio that the police who had left his gas station needed to come back, because people were cutting in line and some of them had guns. Guess this is the dark side of Houston’s entrepreneurial spirit. Lots of  convenience stores are opening without power, selling whatever is on their shelves that didn’t melt or spoil without refrigeration. My neighborhood Kroger also opened with the same deal–they are just selling whatever people want to buy, probably red gas cans. The line of shoppers went way outside the door. Ditto Panda Express, a sure sign that things are really bad. 

You could say we have now progressed from the 19th to the 20th Century. We have no cable, but the old black and white tv works fine–with just four channels. (Of course, we just watch PBS anyway.) Old fashioned telephones worked while portables didn’t when the power was off. People now want their newspapers, because they don’t have tvs. They listen to the radio. (They listen to the tv bands, though, where reporters say things like “You won’t believe what I’m seeing!” and then they don’t describe what they are seeing for the listeners. They might want to review Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast. Then again, maybe not.) And, fortunately, businesses are taking checks, though there still aren’t any banks open that I’ve seen in which to cash them.

There are downed saplings all over downtown, peeled up by their roots from below–like an angry diety reached under the grass and scooped them up, even out of some metal grates– and many of the old pines and oaks split and fell at Bayou Bend. There are alot of injured birds, too, some who were hurt in the storm and some who were cut by flying glass downtown. An hour or so ago I saw a dove with a broken wing hopping across my back yard. Maybe I can get him before the cats do.

Well, now it’s 9:37p.m.–I know that exactly because my power is on–and also because I am sitting at my computer because every citizen of Houston is now under a 9 p.m. curfew until further notice. It’s nice to feel 17 again, except that my house now seems to be permanently inhabited by real 17 year olds, lured by the rumor of working a/c. Tomorrow they are going to get a lesson in brush clearing, so I hope they sleep well.

Target was indeed open and picked clean of virtually all food and yard cleaning equipment. People were surreptitiously charging their cell phones on available wall plugs when employees weren’t looking. The bathrooms must have become too popular, because managers tried to close them with Out of Order signs, when they were running just fine. Everyone just slipped under the yellow tape.

The promised cool front actually came in, which has made everyone relax just a little. There’s a full moon out in a sky spackled with clouds, and the breeze carries just a hint of fall. Houston has all of a sudden become the green city of its latest ambitions: people are walking everywhere, gawking or shopping, and sitting on their front porches, having cookouts. Driving through the city today–looking at the roof damage at Reliant Stadium and the felled pines in River Oaks, which blocked Kirby Drive–I heard laughter and chatter everywhere, all of it human. We’re all desperate to get back to all our electronic bubbles–cell phones, internet, cable–but it’s hard not to notice how habitable and engaged this city seems right now, no matter which neighborhood you’re in. It’s also hard–or it was hard, since my power is back on–to adjust to doing . . . nothing. Everyone in my small neighborhood was out early this morning, raking their yards of fallen green leaves and clearing huge branches–the king of every neighborhood right now is the man with a chainsaw– and I’m sure that this was partly to establish normalcy and work off tension, but I think it was also because the days seem so much longer without all those modern interruptions. If you can’t divert yourself with emails and phone calls and Facebook, you have a great many hours in the day to fill.

Sam just came back with pictures of I-45 that look like a re-run of tropical storm Alison. After last night’s thunderstorm, flooding is much worse–roads I drove through just yesterday are now impassible. 

Just heard that Target is open. Will head over there to look for a cord so I can download pictures–had to remove Smiley’s from my blog– but go look at the Chron online today for all the bad news. And by the way, it is beastly hot here, the air so thick you can barely breathe. Only the mosquitoes can be happy about this.