Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Houston

I used to think that Houston was a pretty good city - it has a lot of world class museums, great independent restaurants, and is cosmopolitan in ethnic make up and world view. Then I got this job working with a bunch of people grading standardized tests, and it turns out I am the only person working there who lives inside the Loop (the center of the city, still pretty large), a place everybody else apparently considers to be a hub of crime and liberal gluttony. Seriously, when we talk about our favorite restaurants at work, everybody debates the merits of Cheddar's vs. Chili's, one person actually saying that with chain restaurants at least you know you'll always get a "good meal." I mentioned the Menil to somebody at work and he had never heard of it, and when describing Memorial Park to another person who lamented the lack of parks in Houston, she said she wouldn't go to a park inside the Loop for fear of being murdered by a homeless person (opposite). As somebody who spent much of his life growing up in the ass crack of nowhere, I can't imagine living next to a hub of culture and ignoring it, but I guess why go to a museum or ball game when there's a Dave & Buster's a mile away?

RATING: 35%

12 comments:

Belabras said...

I've been to a Dave & Busters in Houston. You are much more likely to be killed there than in a park.

laurie said...

Thank you for not taking me outside of the loop when I came to visit.

John said...

I'd rather be the ass than the crack, I guess.

McT's Girlfriend said...

For call outs I'll go anywhere in the Loop. When I'm on corner duty it's normally at Crawford and Franklin. That's right downtown near Minute Maid.

Chris said...

Well, that's mostly true excluding West Houston.

Travel down Westheimer and Richmond past the Beltway and you'll find one of the largest and most diverse areas in the country.

Fact. Goodnight.

Chris said...

I think it's a shame a lot of "inner loopers" haven't gone west of the Beltway.

So, I think it really works both ways (excluding every other suburban area).

DCP said...

You're just trying to defend Spring, admit it.

laurie said...

Lookit, apparently the air in Houston sucks, too.

Viking Andrew said...

Yeah, around the time I moved down there Houston had a worse smog situation than L.A. Worse traffic, too. Oh, well. I was actually hating the idea of moving down there (there's a thing in Texas where, if you're not from Houston you sort of view it as a kind of black hole--sorry, Chris) but once I got down there I realized that it's a hell of a fun place.

LoCo said...

I'm over it. I'm ready to move into my godfather's rent-controlled apartment in Sunset Park. Later, Houston!

Viking Andrew said...

What the fuck is Sunset Park? Is that in, like, La Jolla?

LoCo said...

My friend lives in La Jolla and before I visited her I went around thinking she lived in La-JOE-la.