Houston Archives
Home Sweet Houston
11:28 am | 0 | Internerd | Houston
Five years ago this month I packed up more everything I owned and drove to Houston. I got here on a Monday with no job and no permanent place to live and by the following weekend I was bartending in Rice Village and saving up money to buy a bed and some furniture and put a deposit down on an apartment.
I have said it a million times here and elsewhere but moving to Houston was the best decision I have ever made, on a whim or otherwise. I can’t express how much I love this town and how happy I am to be back here after living in Korea.
On that note, here is a Wikipedia article explaining the Six Wards of Houston. I live in the Fourth Ward, which is also home to Freedman’s Town. Here is an interesting article about Freedman’s Town.
Art Car sadness
12:14 am | 0 | Photo Album | Houston
Tom Jones, curator at the Houston Art Car Museum, was killed early this morning, just a few hours after the annual Art Car Parade wrapped, after he was hit by a speeding car while sitting on the curb outside the museum.
So sad. The parade is one of the things I love best about Houston. I spent all afternoon taking pictures and had an excellent time, as usual, and part of that is due to the hard work Jones lovingly put into the museum and the parade over the years. Truly a devastating loss for the Houston art community.
Above is Jones riding yesterday in a car called Swamp Mutha. Click the image for more pictures of the parade. To quote Jones: “Keep America’s roads weird — build an Art Car!”
Skull and bones
10:03 pm | 1 | Photo Album | Friends, Houston
Photo by Grind Slut
The Rule household has been hashing and camping with friends in the woods of Southeast Texas all weekend. We are currently recovering from fresh thorny-vine lacerations, sunburns and a two-week-old case of poison ivy.
What have you been up to?
Oh noes!
3:18 pm | 0 | Shorts | Houston, Listening
I just found out Neil Hamburger is performing Saturday night as well! I would hate this city if I didn’t love it so much.
Chafed
6:45 pm | 2 | Photo Album | Houston
So I only did the 40-miler. But it took me less than three hours and I’ll challenge anyone who thinks that not a brag-worthy accomplishment.
Upon my velocipede
When we first moved back to Houston I bought a new bicycle. It was a difficult decision to trade my old beach cruiser in since we’d had some good times together. And some bad. I still have scars on my ankles from trying to ride that thing on the Memorial Park bike trail so treacherous it’s nickname is the Ho Chi Min. But the new bike is better in dozens of ways. The tires have grip. It has shocks! And more than 20 speeds and front and rear breaks.
Three years ago I rode my Schwinn beach cruiser — the bike with no gears and with nothing but coaster breaks — in the first annual Tour de Houston. Twenty miles isn’t that far on a bike, and that was my plan. Ride 20 miles and see how I feel. The long ride was 40 miles, but the route circled through Houston’s six wards and passed close by my house several times along the way, so I figured I could skip out and ride home at any time. When I felt pretty good at the end of 20 miles I decided to just keep going. At 30 miles I didn’t feel so positive. Towards the end of the ride I was getting to the relief stations so late they were already out of snacks and water. But still I soldiered on, me on my beach cruiser, and I finished the race so emotionally and physically drained I actually cried with relief.
Much has changed since then. I weigh about 30 pounds less and I’m in much better shape in terms of muscle mass and cardio endurance. And I have a better bike. So tomorrow I’m going to ride the Tour de Houston again, and this time I’m aiming for a distance they didn’t have the first year, 70 miles.
Seventy miles on a bicycle. We’re actually going to be riding on the highway. We’re riding to the suburbs of Houston and back. Seventy miles is like riding your bike from Oklahoma City to Stillwater.
I’m not sure if I can actually do it, but I am so excited about giving it a try that I can’t even sleep, and I have to be up at 5 a.m. tomorrow.
Springtime down in the ‘Trose
10:35 pm | 3 | Blog | Houston, Listening
A while ago someone asked me where I lived. Not the actual address — she already knew that — but the name of my neighborhood. “What do you call that? Midtown? Or Montrose?”
I wanted to be offended but after giving it some thought I understood her confusion. For the record, I refer to my neighborhood as The Montrose. Sometimes other people call it The Mantrose. Or the Gayborhood. I live off lower Westheimer, behind Numbers. The eastern border of one of Houston’s most eclectic neighborhoods. But I can see where the lines might be blurry, where the borders begin to meld.
Ten years ago, before I even considered moving to this city, before I even knew Houston had a gay district, people were decrying the gentrification of my neighborhood. I first noticed it while on a visit here after moving to Korea. Someone had painted over the deliciously salacious mural at Mary’s.
(Here is a side story about Mary’s that is altogether unrelated but too good not to share: My old friend John grew up as a punk rock/surfer kid in Houston in the 1980s. At the heyday of Judas Priest’s career, long before Rob Halford came out, back when it was still completely fashionably acceptable and rock-n-roll for a seemingly-straight man to wear ass-less leather chaps, John went to see the band play somewhere in town. Being the star-struck teenager he was, he and some friends decided to follow the Priests’ tour bus back to their hotel after the show. But the bus didn’t go to a hotel. Instead, it promptly delivered Halford to Mary’s, Houston’s most notorious gay bar.)
Since moving back I’ve noticed other changes too. Dozens of new built-in-a-week townhomes, including a trio around the corner from us selling for half a million dollars. That’s half a million dollars for a home with two out of four shared walls and no front or back yard. (Also, have you seen the monstrocity being built between the Height’s Target and I-10? The thing is so big it looks like it could house half of Houston alone. And there is another one going up next to our closest dog park which will effectively block out the little sunlight the park gets in the first place. And this is not a phenomenon isolated to The Montrose.
The transvestite hookers on our corner have been replaced by Mystic-tanned sports car drivers looking for fresh meat at LaStrada and even my old favorite haunts are now plagued by Juicy-clad chicas and young urban professionals who can only manage to button the bottom half of their shirts. There are no less than 10 new wine bars in my hood, meanwhile, it’s impossible to find a St. Arnold’s within walking distance.
Granted, I live in one of those townhomes, but it was built in 1993! And for the most part it’s structurally sound! And my husband may also be a young urban professional, but we have a leg up on the typical Midtown resident and that advantage is this: we are not annoying. Still, even as I type this, techno music is blaring from Numbers on a Monday night, plans have been finalized for the Westheimer Block Party, and the collar-popping jerks of the world have yet to overrun my other favorite sleazy bar, Lola’s. My faith in my ‘hood was reignited on Election Night when I communed with my neighbors — people who actually live in this neighborhood, not just spend their money here — and no one even threw a hissy fit about the hours they spent in line.
And weirdo folk-rock musicians are still writing wonderful little odes to my neighborhood which has had most of the Houston music bloggers linking with glee this week.
Barack Obama bought me candy
I just got home from the Barack Obama Houston rally. I live-blogged it on Twitter but you can read a more thorough account written by someone else on the Chronicle’s political blog (with pictures) here.
To sum up my experience — I was hoping for something more along the lines of his New Hampshire primary speech and was a bit disappointed to hear same-ol’ material similar to previous speeches. The event was not well-organized at all and getting into the Toyota Center was a hassle, but it appeared that everyone with a ticket at least was able to get in, as well as some standbys.
A lot of what makes a rally a rally involves cheesiness, and I’m the type to sit with my hands clasped firmly to my hips when The Wave comes around, but it’s hard not to get “fired up” as we say in Texas when everyone else is too. I mean, The Dude pretty much had me at Renew American Diplomacy but also, having been away from American for the better part of nearly three years I am eager to absorb and involve myself in all aspects of American culture, the most fundamental of which is our process of electing representatives. In summation, it was an interesting experience and has piqued my interest in further participate, especially with regards to the Texas Two-Step.
N-E-ways, lest I get all political bloggy, I would also like to express once again how excited and grateful I am about my new job, not just because of the most excellent perks it offers but also because I no longer have to be 100 percent financially dependent on my number one best husband, who returns from his month-long exile tomorrow. The afore-mentioned reunion, as well as on-the-job training and a potential excursion to Austin for the weekend may make it a bit tumbleweedy around these here parts, but don’t you fret, amigos. Rest assured I’m either laid up in bed with the vapors or surrounding myself with the finest of Houston’s arts and culture.
Photos rescued from captivity
11:16 pm | 4 | Photo Album | Houston
I did not go see Dave Eggers speak tonight, instead satisfying myself with a plate of home-made nachos and general slothiness in the aftermath of a long and eventful weekend.
I did manage to unearth the USB cable from a yet-to-be-unpacked pile of officewares, thus allowing me to free more than two months’ worth of pictures from my omnipresent digicam.
Witness:
I find the Weinermobile to be utterly ridiculous, especially when it is parked in front of the yuppiest granolaist grocery store in all of Houston, salivated over by crowds of numbskulls posing like tourists as though they’ve never seen food-shaped transportation before. Unfortunately, I was one of those numbskulls. I simply couldn’t leave without getting a picture. I hate myself for succumbing to the eccentric and nostalgic charms of some corporate marketing guru’s brainchild, but I am not immune to everything, you know. Besides, I didn’t even get out of my car to take the shot.
The Proletariat’s Final Night
11:33 pm | 0 | Shorts | Houston
I refuse to lament the closing of the Proletariat. For one, I was never fond of the place, and for two, this town needs proper public transportation more that it needs yet another hangout for insufferable hipsters.