2007 Winners and Losers

"Who's the big winner? Mikey's the big winner."

--Vince Vaughan, Swingers

Passing what is shaping up to be one of my more enjoyable New Year's Eves-no fighting with my date, getting ill at a football game or in Deep Elum (and having my girlfriend dump me while I had 104 degree fever), or setting up six hours for a party at which I stayed for two. Instead, Dad and I are doing our white Sanford and Son impression-watching football and commenting on the great issues of the day. As 2007 gives way to 2008, and as Clemson vs. Auburn ends and Top Hat takes its place, I thought I'd end the year by recapping the winners and losers of the year. Lots of people do the Best and Worst lists, this is my own slant. No particular order here, just some random thoughts.

Winners

1. The Spears Sisters. Britney and Jamie Lynn made a bold move to wrest control of the title of "Biggest Trainwreck Sisters" from the Hiltons. Now, this is a crowded field, what with the Hiltons, Olsens, Simpsons, and Duffs. Oh, and don't forget the "Seniors Tour" of sisterly craziness, starring the Garland girls, Jacksons, Gabors, and of course the all-time champions in this category, Olivia DeHavilland and Joan Fontaine. But Britney by herself was able to stay competitive in this category, what with her recent spectacular multi-sport run (multiple legal problems, professional embarrassment, parenting and marital disasters, estrangement from her mother, substance abuse, public indecency, and in a brilliant "stroke" of genius, head-shaving). Britney's been carrying a disproportionate share in this event, sort of like Tommie Aaron's 13 home runs put together with Hank Aaron's 755 makes them the top home-run hitting brothers in the show. But from nowhere, Jamie Lynn made a stunning debut in the trash category with her pregnancy at 16 by her "boyfriend" (right...I think we're going to find out it was the producer really quickly). Now THAT's announcing your presence with authority. I look for great things from these two now that JLS upped the ante. This will be like Lennon and McCartney challenging each other to write ever-better songs, and we'll all be the richer for it. Oh, and don't forget, there's a younger Lohan sister right around the corner. She's 14, already has an album out, and idolizes Lindsay. This is gonna get good.

2. College football coaches. When I was in law school, my professors taught me that a contract when breached obligated the breacher to pay damages, or in some cases to be forced to honor the contract. Apparently this doesn't apply to college football coaches. A contract apparently just means, well, nothing. Signed Todd Graham. These guys win either way-they get out of their contracts when a bigger payday comes along, or get paid off when they're fired. 2007 was open season on job-hopping in the NCAA.

3. Boise State. The 2007 Fiesta Bowl was the weirdest football game ever played, and I mean weirder than Cal-Stanford. Boise State goes up big on the Sooners, only to give it all back, then Zabransky throwing an interception for a TD that appeared to seal it, then the hook and ladder, and statue of liberty at the end to win, and then the running back who wins the MVP award proposes to his cheerleader girlfriend on national TV while being interviewed. I was waiting for the dancing elephants and the circus midget.

4. Republicans. The Democrats finally score what appeared to be a knockout punch, elect the first woman Speaker of the House ever, and set out to end the Iraq war, save the children that the evil Republicans are trying to kill, feed the poor and the sick, tax the rich out of existence, stop all pollution, etc. How did it end? Failure nearly across the board. And the Senate has to keep meeting throughout the recess for fear Bush will nominate judges in their absence. Gosh darn those fiendish Republicans!

5. Toll roads. This is how old I am. I remember back when the government would build roads that anyone could drive on for free. The federal government paid for most of them, out of all the gas taxes. Not so much anymore. Now days the government charges for just about everything it does, so you get taxed on the front end, then you pay again for using the services that your taxes supposedly already paid for. Good thing we've been electing fiscal conservatives all these years.

6. Alec Baldwin. Talk about Lazarus. This guy was one foot in the grave til 30 Rock came along. Now I want to be Jack Donaghy. Thank God for eighth chances. Of course, "you are a rude, thoughtless little pig" probably wasn't the way to go.

7. Ron Paul. Congressional gadfly and resident kook, suddenly transformed into respected Republican presidential candidate and fund-raising champion. This year's Paul Tsongas.

8. Apple. Talk about a run. Apple first practically invents the home computer, only to have the Gates/IBM crowd snake the market from them, then after years of moribund appeal to the hard-core computer geeks, they stumble into a money-making machine called Ipod. Then this year they swindle the market with iPhone, which is tech for "does lots of things poorly." Sort of the Golden Corral of personal technology-its not great but there's a lot of it. Nice to see Microsoft continue stumbling for ways to bust into that market.

9. Bobby Jindal. First non-white Governor of Louisiana. Let's put this into perspective. The main job qualification for this particular position has historically been an ability to tell a great story, date "exotic dancers" and beat a lie detector test. Oh, and being extremely white too. This guy, born in Baton Rouge to Indian immigrant parents, went to Brown University, not LSU or Tulane for God's sake, was a Rhodes Scholar, and worked at McKinsey & Co. before being appointed state Director of Health and Hospitals, then Assistant U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services, then was elected to Congress. In other words, this guy actually is bright, talented, and capable. In 2008, he will be the youngest sitting governor in the United States. That's what I call being on a roll.

10. Lauren Upton (Miss South Carolina Teen USA). Question: why can't a fifth of Americans locate America on a world map. Answer: "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.” Well, exactly. Hey, there've been less articulate Secretaries of State in this country. Look at it this way, how many other times have you heard of Miss South Carolina Teen USA? I thought so.

Losers

1. Anna Nicole. We all lost here. Now we can't even make fun of her anymore, which, lets face it, was highly satisfying. Let me go this far though-look at where that woman started and where she got to and that's starting to look like a pretty amazing life. By all rights, she should have expected to stay in Mexia, have 10 kids, and work at the Wal-Mart. That she had 1/10th the life she did was nothing short of remarkable.

2. The Central Texas drought. I began to wonder this summer whether I was living in Austin or Rangoon. It usually rains about three times in Austin between mid-June and September. Everything turns brown, and the newscasts profile "water wasters." This year, rainfall was 10 inches above normal. I didn't know whether to build an Ark or set out crawfish traps.

3. Hollywood. Not the best of times for LA, and its not going to get better any time soon. Now that it doesn't take a Louie B. Mayer or the Goldwyns to finance and distribute a movie, democracy is eating away at the studios' creative stranglehold over movies and television. Robert Rodriguez can make El Mariachi for $7,000, or Blair Witch Project can be made for $60,000. Distribution deals are made at film festivals, or with independent financiers. People don't even go to the movies anymore-they download them from the internet or buy DVDs for cheap. The same thing is occurring on TV-written shows with stories are giving way to so-called reality shows, lacking real actors and writers, costing pennies on the dollar for the traditional shows. In the midst of all this, the writers figured this would be a perfect time to strike. This is sort of like the industrial strikes in the 1970s, as manufacturing and industrial companies were moving overseas and jobs were being lost everywhere. Look at the results. The late night talk shows are going back on without writers. The networks, already competing against a raft of specialized cable and satellite programming, are replacing sitcoms and dramas with more reality shows. What viewing audience is left will soon find they can get along very well without new ER or According to Jim episodes.

4. Houston Rockets. Holy Crap! I thought the demise of Van Gundy ball was supposed to open up the scoring. The Rockets were going to be the Suns East. Now they can't hold a lead at home against Golden State. Tracy McGrady can't play more than about 10 games without getting an ouchie and missing the next three weeks. Steve Francis is lying down on the court beside the bench. Meanwhile the Rockets flounder, and the offense can't even achieve Van Gundy offensive numbers.

5. The 'Roiders. Clemens, Bonds, Marion Jones, Andy Pettite...the list goes on forever. Clemens is toast by the way. Won't it be a shock when his own "investigation" clears him of steroid use? I like that Brian Mcnamee is threatening a libel suit against Clemens. One day these guys will learn they can't just get in front of a microphone and say anything that sounds good without some consequences.

6. Dirty Smelly Austin Hippies. "Keep Austin Weird" is losing to "Pave Austin." More and more, high rise lofts, office buildings, and high-end retail shopping developments are rising over Austin, pushing the freaks back into the wallboards and attics of the town, or moving places they can afford, like Alpine or Wimberly. Of course, WASPs are moving there too, bedeviling these slackers no matter where they go.

7. Larry Craig. I featured this guy previously. Why is he still around?

8. NASA. What does NASA get the most press in years for? Rescuing the Hubble Space Telescope, putting the Space Shuttle back into service, finally putting a teacher in space, trips to and a bold repair job on the International Space Station? No. NASA got more publicity than since Apollo or the last Shuttle disaster when one of its astronauts straps on a diaper, loads up with pepper spray and a BB gun, and heads to Florida to confront the "other woman" that her alleged boyfriend was seeing. Not exactly the Right Stuff, huh? Oh, and lets not forget the drunk astronauts story, or the murder-suicide at the JSC. NASA upper management does not look forward to next year's Congressional budget hearings.

9. Jennifer Love Hewitt. I get that popular culture is far too body conscious, and female body "ideals" are unhealthy. Really I do. I'm the one who defended "fat" Britney after the VMA Awards, remember. And I sympathize with an actess fighting against those unhealthy body expectations. But...damn! Have you seen these pictures? OK, maybe she doesn't have to have her roof removed and have herself lifted by a crane to leave the house, but for someone who until very recently was an underwear model, something is dreadfully wrong. JLH needs to lay off the prednisone, switch to the lowfat Oreos, stay away from Britney's nutritionist, and go for a weekly walk.

10. Rosie. This annoying corpulent mass appears to have finally hit the skids. It was actually somewhat amusing when she was getting killed by the Donald, but taking on the Ladies of the View is an entirely different matter. Rosie has pretty much become the lesbian Roseanne. Remember when Rosie was going to unseat Oprah as queen of daytime talk? Yeah those days are long gone.

11. Stars in need of very good lawyers. Where to start? Phil Spector, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Donald Sutherland, Michael Vick, Don Imus, the Juice...the road goes on forever.

12. Paris. That blood curdling scream, followed by moans, followed by breaking objects, wasn't something in your house, it was Paris Hilton in LA finding out the money's run dry. The old man decided not to give his fortune to his parasitic offspring, and to put it to more worthwhile pursuits. That's right, he cut off the Paris Train. She won't exactly go broke, but she will unless she dials down her lifestyle (and stays out of jail).

Honorable Mention: Chuck Rosenthal. Leave out the moral aspects of an elected public official having a way too close relationship with his secretary. Sending e-mails on state-owned computers to said individual saying things like "I want to kiss you behind the right ear" is so incredibly stupid as to beg the question whether the guy should be the District Attorney in the first place. At least it was her ear.

Well that's probably more than enough. The cold front's blowing through right now (about time-I was bitten by mosquitos in Memorial Park after my run this afternoon). Top Hat's finished, and Swing Time is winding down, as am I. Next I'll share my New Year's Resolutions.

My Christmas Wish

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. We had a nice time. We opened all our presents, then Dad showed some old home movies he had put on tape. It was really interesting seeing these movies, showing Mom and Dad before I was born, both my grandmothers, and others who haven't been here since I was a boy. Hopefully everyone had a great Christmas too.

And in the spirit of the holiday, I send my Christmas Wish to you, as outlined by Steve Martin many years ago.

Austin Trail of Lights

Last night I and everyone else in the city of Austin, and their strollers, went to the annual Trail of Lights. Got smashed several times by hellbent parents' strollers, but I probably got even with the number of kids I knocked down. Seems like the Trail is much more packed these days than previous years. Enjoyed the many lights, and the Moon Tower/Christmas Tree on the other side of Barton Springs Road (make sure to twirl under the lights, preferably after you've listened to A Saucerful of Secrets about 12 times). Pictures are available on flickr.

Hall of Sort of Fame

Mulling an entry to deal with some girls gone wild lately, but for now here's to those who were sort of famous, but should have absolutely dominated their times. Here are some people who achieved some measure of greatness, but for various reasons never realized their full potential. No real order here.

1. Cyd Charisse. Stunning leggy brunnette from Planet Babe (actually she's from Amarillo, another Texas girl). Pretty much stole whatever parts of Singin' In the Rain that Donald O'Connor hadn't already lifted, without uttering a word of dialogue. Every bit as attractive as the much more celebrated Ava Gardner, but with actual talent. Astaire's best ever dancing partner.

2. The Kinks. Songwriting skills that exceeded probably every British Invasion band but the Beatles, and a great showman/leader in Ray Davies. Good musicianship, and they had some spectacular songs, but never really hit the big time like some of their lesser peers.

3. Gene Wilder. Pretty much wrote the funniest parts of Young Frankenstein, was spot on as Willy Wonka, yet was a fantastic straight man in The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Silver Streak. Then kind of vanished. I suppose Gilda Radner's death may be responsible for that. Always thought him capable of a lot more.

4. Robert Mitchum. A "real" tough guy. Sinatra always wanted to be what Mitchum actually was. Yet Mitchum could play a variety of roles and handled each deftly. Drug busts and a thirst for booze probably didn't help. See next...

5. Montgomery Clift. Brilliant and understated in From Here to Eternity, and carried A Place in the Sun. Troubled by the usual "Behind the Music" type ills.

6. Jill Clayburgh. Loved her in Silver Streak, then she apparently spent the rest of her career doing crap. Sadly relegated to TV show guest starring roles.

7. The Band. Absolutely solid group, connected to everyone in the 60s scene through their stint with Dylan. Probably if the Byrds hadn't hit The Band would have. Ironically, their "final performance" made into a movie by Scorcese (The Last Waltz) was probably their high-water mark. Although its weird now to see Neil Young stumbling around on stage with coke smeared on his nose.

8. Bob Hoskins. Great in Cotton Club, then Roger Rabbit, and managed not to get upstaged by National Treasure Cher in Mermaids. Pulled off the role of Nikita Krushchev in Enemy at the Gates. Yet never really seemed to hit big like he deserved. Probably too often confused for Danny DeVito.

9. Nick Drake/Townes VanZandt/Gram Parsons. Nothing like dying before your time to cement your reputation. Signed James Dean. All three excellent singer-songwriters. All three with substance abuse demons. All three tragically underappreciated, but inspirational to generations of future musicians.

10. And finally, Dean Martin. I know, he was famous, hung out with Sinatra, sold millions of records, blah, blah, blah. But Jerry Lewis would have been nothing without Dean Martin, the greatest straight man ever. Martin never got any credit for his acting ability, probably because he went the Vegas/Rat Pack/Dean Martin Show route instead. Anyone who doubts Dino's acting chops should watch The Young Lions, Some Came Running, or Rio Bravo. Terrible that he didn't focus more on acting.

San Antonio Riverwalk Christmas Lights

Tonight I passed a great time with some friends in San Antonio whom I forced to take me to the Riverwalk to see the Christmas lights. We rode one of the river boats in about a 30 minute or so tour. I've posted the photos at www.flickr.com/photos/chrisreeder under the San Antonio Riverwalk Christmas Lights 2007 folder. The last (or maybe first) few pics actually are of the Texas Capitol and a downtown Austin office building last night in the thick fog.

Wanted to share that their precious little 4 year old daughter, who made me Christmas cookies as a present, saw a shopping bag that someone had thrown away and that was stuck in a tree and stated that litterbugs like that should be "put in the lion's cage." Very happy to meet another "law and order Republican" in the making.

Dear (Insert Name Here) I Hope You Have a Very Merry Christmas

Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot.

But the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not.

--The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

I tried to lay off, really I did, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take down that staple of middle class suburban life, the Generic Christmas Letter in Lieu of a Real Christmas Card.

Now I realize I'm on shaky ground here, as a lot of you are adherents to this puzzling ritual. But if Daily Affirmations stands for anything, its truth. Or making fun of the less fortunate-I haven't quite decided yet.

Frankly, I have always found these things a little off-putting and impersonal. Yet, at the same time I must concede they are no less impersonal than the pre-printed sentiment in nearly all Christmas cards. That explains why I include some unique written message to each and every lucky few of you to whom I send Christmas cards. Usually something along the lines of "Merry Christmas. Stay away from my house." I also accept that these generic letters serve an ostensibly reasonable purpose-updating friends about your life during the past year (that, notably, you haven't bothered to as much as pick up the phone and say hi in an entire year). But while that rationale may have had some justification back when you had to wait for the Pony Express or the Wells Fargo Wagon to deliver the mail once a week, that's not so true in the e-mail age. Lets face it, if your friend hasn't bothered to contact you in an entire year in this electronic age, even to reply "Good one" to your 50th blonde joke mass e-mail of the week, you may want to rethink your spot in the pecking order. Besides, the more appropriate way to update friends about your life is to start a blog, thereby avoiding the unpleasantness of actually talking to them. By unpleasantness, I mean chance encounters at the mall or the store along the lines of: "Hey, whatcha been up to? Not much. Yeah, me too. Cool. Umm...I think I left my kids locked in the car with the windows up, so I need to go now. OKbye." NB: without clearing it with me first, my family appears to have, in a nod to Shakespeare, created a new word: "Okbye" which, translated, I gather is just "OK, goodbye" said at auctioneer speed. I think what it actually means is: "OK, you're done talking now."

Anyway, my real objection to these kinds of letters is not so much their impersonal nature but their oppressive upbeat message. They are Lena Guerrero resume versions of your actual life, omitting nearly everything remotely negative (or anything negative that doesn't end in a positive, e.g. "little Billy slipped at the pool and cracked his skull, but the resulting brain trauma miraculously triggered some hidden brain location and he is now a certified genius."). When is the last time you read a Christmas letter along the lines of "Boy its been a challenging year. Pa got out of prison, and we're thankful for that, but he's in a halfway house for the next six months, plus, we have to move when he gets back home because our house is within 300 feet of a school. Ma lost her job at the meat-packing plant, so we've been just eating the 'Helper" without the rejected hamburger meat Ma used to bring home. (Homage to Cousin Eddie in Vacation). She got a new job down at the nursing home washing the coma patients, but tripped over Old Man Davis' feeding tube one night and tore her hamstring."

No, most of these letters make your own life seem sad and pathetic by comparison. I suppose its possible that my life really is sad and pathetic, so any letter at all would have the same result. Anyway, there's always the heroic Dad, fresh off a promotion to some glorious job making lots of money and doing lots of Important Things. Mom usually is too, or at least has some really altruistic, "save the world and still have time to drop the kids off for soccer practice" lifestyle. The kids all go to Andover or Exeter, and have been admitted to Harvard even though they're only sophomores, or they're the only kid in their kindergarten class who's mastered advanced algebra. They tell you about their fantastic vacations to sunny places with unpronounceable names like Ibiza or the Seychelles, and live in three story houses near crystal clear lakes. These relentlessly positive diatribes generally leave me feeling like a total failure. The "loser" pangs shoot up my spine on cue as I turn to notice the piled-up laundry withering on my spare bed and see the layer of leaves growing on the lawn outside my window. Where's my house by the lake, and my perfect wife, and my perfect kids? In short, I wind up feeling like the kid at school who brings a pine cone for show and tell that he picked up from his neighbor's yard while waiting for the bus, when everyone else shows up with their sweet new toys to drop on foolz.

So with all apologies, I generally just hit the highlights of these things. First I notice who its from, and make a mental note "still alive" and "still on Christmas card list." Then I look for any evidence of a personal touch, like "Hi Chris" or "Merry Christmas dickweed" in handwriting. Any little sign of uniqueness that no one else got but me.

In the spirit of the season, where turnabout is fair play, I'm posting my own generic Christmas greeting. Hope you all enjoy catching up with my life over the past year.

Dear (Insert Name Here):

Hope you're having a wonderful Christmas season. I know my life has been spectacular these past 12 months. The year started off on a high note, when I attended the Playboy Mansion New Year's Party as Hef's personal guest, and then flew on Jay Z's private jet after midnight along with Beyonce and Gwen Stefani to Vegas to catch the Wynn's after-hours party. The whole first of the year was a whirlwind, what with going to the Super Bowl (attended the Maxim party and saw the game in the Colts' owner's suite), Mardi Gras (was the first ever honorary King of Momus), the Final Four in Atlanta, Fashion Week in Milan (Gisele and Alessandra practically begged me to come-it was kind of embarrassing), attending the White House State Dinner for Queen Elizabeth II, and culminating in the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.

Love has found me too. After a brief fling with Minnie Driver and a somewhat ill-advised weekend in the Hamptons with Tara Reid, I have finally found the love of my life. She's a famous actress who values her privacy so I can't write her full name, but lets just say that Jessica S. and I have been tearing it up the past few months.

Work has been amazing. Sidebar: are you as over the word "amazing" as I am? Sorry, but few things are, in reality, "amazing." The fact that your four year old kid can use the bathroom at day care without the teacher helping does not qualify as "amazing." I won 12 jury trials, argued five cases at the Supreme Court, and closed three separate billion dollar leveraged buyouts. In between I wrote an article comparing the civil law and common law treatment of mortgage securities, for which I won the very first Nobel Prize in Law. My firm, Reeder, P.C., opened a new office in Siena, bringing us to 12 offices throughout the world.

I built a new country house in Taos. I just love the simple lifestyle there. It goes well with my houses in Beverly Hills, Tuscany, Bali, and my little cottage by the Shannon in County Limerick. I hope you can come visit me sometime at the new place. Be sure to call first of course.

We're looking forward to trips next year to China and Brazil, where Bono and I hope to meet with President Lula to talk about deforestation of the Amazon Basin. I'm also excited about my new ABC-TV reality show starting next year-"Kiss the Barrister." Hope you'll all watch.

God Bless You All!

P.S. Even though I was basking in the glow of a rare prime-time Texans victory, the Viva Viagra commercial nearly ruined it. If I ever get excited enough about viagra (pun intended) to have a hootenanny with six guys, don't even bother with the intervention. Just put me out on an ice floe like some aging Inuit warrior.

TV's Sexiest Woman?

Tonight- rejected Esquire magazine-style fluff.

I refuse to believe that sex tape-leaking, rock and roll pegboard Pamela Anderson is the sexiest woman ever on TV, as AOL claims. Everyone knows who that honor belongs to. Or at least Catwoman. AOL/TimeWarner is the same group whose stock's return has dropped nearly 20% in the last year. The former Mrs. Kid Rock wasn't even the sexiest woman on her TV show. That honor, as it were, goes to Yasmine Bleeth, of late substance abuser/DUI'er and Lifetime Network hack, but formerly stunning brunette.

Not only is Pam Anderson not the sexiest woman ever on TV, I can name five sexier women on TV just from Texas:

1. Sandy Duncan. Just kidding.

1. Farrah. Corpus Christi. I mean, c'mon, full on crazy Letterman appearance notwithstanding. You saw the poster, right? Which reminds me of the old Steve Martin joke about said poster. Next time you see me, ask me to tell you the story about Farrah Fawcett's dad, Joe Jamail, Redd Foxx, and a federal district judge.

2. Eva Longoria. Corpus Christi. Desperate Housewife, married to Belgian star in the Association.

3. Jennifer Garner. Houston. Being Mrs. Affleck is of course a major step towards Pathetic Town, but Alias sure kicked butt.

4. Jaclyn Smith. Houston. I thought I saw her at the Galleria a few years ago and in a few minutes actually worked up the nerve to go up to her and say hi. After all, I previously met two Oakland Raiders cheerleaders and neither of them called for security, so I figured I had sufficient game. Depressingly it wasn't her. But before I found out, it was about three of the most exhilarating minutes ever.

5. Angie Harmon. Highland Park. Sadly married to former nickel back Jason Sehorn after his stunt proposal on Jay Leno. But still breathtaking when ready for trial.

So, please.

Next up, my generic Christmas greeting to you all.

Notes from New Orleans

No I didn't take the photo shown here.

Am in New Orleans again for my annual Louisiana continuing legal education. An excruciatingly tedious ordeal that has less and less relevance to my life. Signed, married sex lives.

Anyway, a few observations. Generally the city still seems light. The Quarter is pretty full but not overly so. The rest of town seems like its a holiday weekend when everyone's out of town. Mostly the debris has been cleaned up and all the street lights are working. The St. Charles Avenue streetcar line is running again, about as far as Napoleon Avenue (still not to Audubon Park). Camellia Grill has reopened, as has Mr. B's Bistro. Haven't seen one single FEMA trailer. The city seems to be a bit safer. I was walking all around the Faubourg Marigny and the residential side of the Quarter late last night, and didn't see any of the usual denizens of the dark. This evening I was sitting at a stop light on Camp Street toward CBD right under the highway leading to Algiers, which before the storm was pretty much the capitol of Murderville. A pretty young girl wearing a summer dress rode up next to me on her bicycle. After chastising her to myself for not wearing a helmet while riding on a busy street, it struck me how this would never have happened pre-Katrina. The neighborhood would have come out en masse to cheer for the arrival of their latest victim. Canal Street is not so crowded either. It used to resemble the street scene outside the Soul Food Cafe in the Blues Brothers. Now its just a huge street with dribs and drabs of people.

Pause to listen briefly to Neil Young singing a new song on SNL about Elvis. "The last time I saw Elvis, he was shooting out a color TV...'cuz he was the King." Neil always did use oddly anachronistic pop culture references: "Marlon Brando, Pocohontas and me."

Tons of drunks, urban detritus, fraternity/sorority members, and tourists filled Bourbon Street. Say you're a legal secretary in Beaumont and your meth dealing live-in boyfriend just left you. What else are you going to do but get your nine closest girlfriends together and head to the French Quarter to drink hurricanes in three foot tall glasses? Go to Vegas I guess. Anyway, they're here in full force, wearing clothes they probably grew out of 10 years ago. Oh, and their meth dealer boyfriends and their buddies decided to come along too. And about 5,000 wedding attendees, and 50,000 high school football fans from places like Bastrop or South Plaquemines, Louisiana.

Tonight after running, and waiting about 45 minutes for the valet staff to retrieve my car from the parking lot one block away, I drove down Magazine street up to Jackson Avenue, then drove up Jackson Avenue along the Zulu parade route (did you know for $1,500 you can ride in the Zulu parade? Kinda cheapens the experience if you ask me). James Brown blaring over WWOZ as I drove along. It was my five minutes of cool per month.

Then went to the Celebration in the Oaks, which is the City Park's annual Christmas lights festival. It was pretty good-lots of pictures will be on flickr. Now, there's four kinds of people that go to things like this: (1) couples on dates; (2) families with kids; (3) teenage girls; and (4) other. And by "other," I do mean "other." Guess which category I fall into. Can't help it. I've always liked Christmas lights. Maybe its holdover from childhood, or the fact that I've always been way too into Pink Floyd.

Was going to go see the Radiators at Maple Leaf, but I screwed around all day too much, so didn't get there til late and blew it off. Drove around and took other pictures.

Express Jet now has a non-stop between Austin and New Orleans, so its easier to get over here than it was. May try to come over more often and visit.

Edit to add: this afternoon as I was driving around in the Quarter, I paused on Gov. Nicholls Street to take a picture. Another girl riding another bike and wearing another summer dress and not wearing a helmet passed me and loudly "meowed" at me. Nothing else, just "meow." I made a woman meow. Didn't even have to touch her. Take that, Harry.

Going Back to Houston?

Pam, in Urban Cowboy, said of Houston “It's my favorite city in the whole world. Its just got so much energy." Then she poured Bud a bourbon and showed him the silver plated saddle in her bedroom. Class move. Been there dozens of times.

I always preferred Pam to Sissy in that movie, and thought Travolta picked the wrong girl at the end of the movie. True, Pam was a conniving, spoiled rich kid, husband-stealing tramp, but she was just trying to keep her cowboy after all, and where I come from that’s what we call “good people.”

Where I come from is southwest Houston in 1972. Where the men watched football games at holidays while the women cooked and cleaned. The kids played out in the yard all day with the neighbor kids, and came in to eat or watch TV shows like Cadet Don and Kitirik (if you never watched Kitirik, you really missed out). The boys played “kill the man with the ball” (the older boys called it something less-PC), and who knows what the girls played (dolls or tea party or something stupid, no doubt). No one worried about child abduction by aliens or roving bands of pedophiles, mostly because someone’s parents were always watching out for the kids on the street. Mom would generally cook, but for a treat, we ate at places like the Log Cabin, San Jacinto Inn, Prince’s Hamburgers, Christie’s, Monterey House, ice cream at the Borden factory, or Valian’s Pizza (still absolutely the best pizza of all time). The grown-ups would go places on special occasions like Sonny Look’s, the Red Lion, or Jimmie Walker’s. For fun, or birthday parties, we’d go to Peppermint Park, Kiddie Wonderland, Sea Arama Marine World, Astroworld, Astros or Cougars games at the Astrodome, watch takeoffs at Hobby Airport, the Battleship Texas/San Jacinto Monument, or watch movies at the Post Oak Drive-in, or Alabama/River Oaks/Bellaire Theatres (one of the greatest times of my life was the night Dad threw caution and money to the wind and we went to a double feature of From Russia With Love and Goldfinger at the Bellaire Theatre. The first time I ever saw a James Bond movie. We first went to K-Mart to buy lemon drops to sneak in Mom’s purse). Houston was quite the town back then: KNUZ and Paul Berlin, Westbury Square, the 1968 Final Four, the Bluebonnet Bowl, the Houston Cougar veer offense, the Shamrock Hotel (Mom won a beauty contest at the Shamrock Hotel once), Globe, Louie Welch, Sharpstown (scandal and shopping center), the original Houston Aeros, Elvis playing eight sold out shows at the Rodeo, Dan Pastorini, Kenny Houston, Elvin Bethea, Don Wilson, Cesar Cedeno, Bob Watson, the Rice Hotel.

In short, I'm from somewhere that’s no longer there.

So naturally I was shocked recently to hear myself advising a young friend that if she really wanted to improve her career and prospects for marriage with a suitable partner, she should consider moving to Houston. After all, there’s only about four things in Houston: freeways, strip centers, package liquor stores and topless bars. Which you get to in your minivan, pickup truck, or your stolen, oil burning 1979 Datsun. I didn’t stick around-most of the times I haven’t lived in Austin I was trying to figure out some way to get back to Austin.

Maybe its all the time I’ve been spending there lately, but Houston has a lot more going for it than meets the eye, or as compared to the People’s Republic of Austin. No the rest of this post was not sponsored by the Houston Chamber of Commerce. To begin with, I really admire the way Houston got started. The Allen Brothers basically took a bayou landing in a swamp, rife with malaria and yellow fever, and managed to convince a bunch of Yankees and Germans that the place would be fantastic for a new city to handle spillover shipping traffic from Galveston. Never mind that the bayou wasn’t actually navigable, or that there were constant floods, yellow fever plagues, mosquitos, and hurricanes. They named it after General Sam hoping to lure the Capitol from Austin. But if the Allens had anything at all going for them it was timing. Once Galveston became flattened in 1900, the refugees needed somewhere inland to wind up, and Houston is where they went. Ever since, it seems like Houston has been a place for people to get their break, make a new start in life, take a chance. From the Allens to Jesse Jones to Bob Smith to Walter Fondren to Glenn McCarthy to Jim McIngvale, Houston has always been a place where you could pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again, no matter what happened in your past.

Houston has professional sports, multiple universities and colleges, world class medical care, the world’s leading energy companies, famous museums, fantastic performance spaces and artists (separate ballet, opera, symphony and theatre companies), great restaurants, a variety of fun bars, coffee shops (don't forget House of Guys, errr, Pies), tons of child-oriented activities, lots of jobs, a pro-business government and civic leadership, and a distinct lack of displaced, horn-honking Californians driving up housing prices. There’s numerous parks with all manner of facilities and activities (Hermann, Memorial, Armand Bayou, San Jacinto, Bear Creek, etc.). The beach (such that it is) and the lake (windsurfing, boating, jetskiing) are not far away.

As compared to Austin, the people are more solid, more down-to-earth. One can find women covered with tattoos, piercings, and multi-color hair, but not every single place you go. I can’t remember the last faux-hawk I saw in Houston. When out on the town in Austin, you have to watch nearly every step to avoid tripping over some out of work web site developer thinking about working on getting gigs for his band (but not actually doing anything about it). In Houston, you meet people who have jobs. Hmm…I wonder at what point in life I became Mr. Hand.

For all of Austin’s supposed “diversity,” Houston has it beat on that score too. Most southwest Houston road signs are in two languages. Houston has all manner of robust ethnic and religious communities virtually unknown to Austin. But like Austin, everyone goes to and enjoys the many city-wide events, like the rodeo, International Festival, Dickens on the Strand or Mardi Gras, and Clear Lake Christmas Boat Parade. Everyone lives and dies (mostly dies, signed Bills 41-Oilers 38) with the Astros, Rockets and now the Texans. In Austin the cops arrest football players, in Houston they also taser them. Now that’s a town with ambition. Houston gets big events that Austin never would: Super Bowls, PGA tournaments, national political conventions, Final Fours. On top of all of it, the living cost is a lot lower.

So let’s confront head-on Houston’s problems, of which there are many.

Humidity. Yes, its extremely humid. Which, however, is good for the skin, and for growing plants. Its not like its not humid lots of other places. Austin’s humidity on average is only about 10-20 percent lower, especially in summer. Would you rather have dry-cracked skin and constant thirst instead?

Heat. Its also very hot. Not as hot as most other places in Texas, but with less breeze and more humidity. Houston doesn’t exactly have melting sidewalks you know. Generally it rains a lot in summer which keeps the afternoon heat down a bit. Its not like Houston is the only town where it gets hot either. Plus, in the winter, when people are dying of exposure, arteriosclerosis and alcoholism in the upper decks of Lambeau Field or Soldier Field, Houstonians are often wearing shorts.

Mosquitoes. Yes there are mosquitoes. They bite, and are irritating. One or two kids die of St. Louis Encephalitis every year. On the other hand, Houston doesn't have any scorpions, spitting cobras, tarantulas, Tasmanian devils, piranha, or baby-stealing dingoes. Everywhere in the world you go, there’s something flying, slithering, charging, or swooping down from the sky. Mosquitoes are pretty innocuous on that scale.

Traffic. Lots of traffic. And road construction. According to some statistics, it’s the worst traffic in the nation. The untold story though is Houston is now pretty decentralized, so conceivably you could stay on your side of town and not go across town for quite awhile.

Killer mass transit trains. I think they’ve pretty much solved that problem. It took awhile for Houstonians to realize that trains and human beings cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and after about the first year the trains quit killing people.

Its ugly. Again, compared to where? Phoenix? Wichita Falls? Ever watched Rushmore? It was filmed mostly in the areas around Rice University, which is one of the most attractive neighborhoods in the country. Kingwood and the Woodlands and lots of other neighborhoods are in attractive wooded areas.

Pollution. Agreed, its one of the most polluted places in the country. In fairness, its going down. Also, most of the pollution is smog or ozone, which isn't as bad as particulates. The Mayor has made great efforts at rallying business to implement voluntary changes. One of the upsides to Houston’s relentless corporate hucksterism is that when it comes to bear at full force, it usually pays off.

Hurricanes. At least you get advance notice one is coming. My California and Alaska friends wake up every day wondering if this is the day for the “big one.” Houston doesn’t get any blizzards, sand storms, plagues of locusts, presidential election campaigns, or other natural disasters.

So if Houston is that great, why don’t I go back? My house is paid off, I have to go to the PUC too often, I have my restaurants and other haunts, and I’m afraid my 2 ½ non-imaginary friends there might be disappointed for a week if I left. I know my 3 non-imaginary friends in Houston would be disappointed if I were there all the time. Plus, in Austin, I’m the wise and mature person. In Houston I’m just another dime-a-dozen yuppie with wrinkled shirts and a bad attitude. So Austin is where I'll stay, until I give it all up to travel the world. Or raise yaks for a living.

But you should check out Houston.

Then again, I always thought Mrs. Houseman was way hotter than Baby in Dirty Dancing, so what do I know?