Some raving-nutbird-loonie right-winger fundie Texans are all upset that Houston has elected Annise Parker as mayor (the longtime city controller and councilperson is openly gay) and is “allowing” Planned Parenthood to build a large new facility in town, so they’re trying to arrange a boycott of Houston, the 4th largest city in the country and one of the largest economies in the state.

Good luck with that, goofballs. 29-95 has more.

They’re Closing Bookstop on Shepherd, and want us to go shop at the bland, cookiecutter new store they bulldozed a shitload of gorgeous art deco buildings for up in River Oaks.

Bastards. Heathen like Amazon better anyway.

Houston, specifically. The Economist has some nice things to say about us:

Mr Kotkin particularly admires Houston, which he calls a perfect example of an “opportunity city” — a place with lots of jobs, lots of cheap housing and a welcoming attitude to newcomers.

He is certainly right about the last point: not too many other cities could have absorbed 100,000 refugees, bigheartedly and fairly painlessly, as Houston did after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. With vibrant Asian communities alongside its balanced Hispanic, white and black mix, with no discernible racial tensions, and with more foreign consulates than any American city except New York and Los Angeles, Houston is arguably America’s most enthusiastically cosmopolitan city, a place where the future has already arrived.

We Heathen call it Home. The state itself is certainly not without problems (as the article points out), but Our Fair City gets all too few shiny notices such as this.

Ordinarily, if a Houstonian goes someplace in the summertime, he gets better weather. Unfortunately, it is presently hotter in Overland Park, Kansas, than it is at home:

Some dear friends’ child has just become very allergic to their cat, so the poor girl has to go.

I mean the cat. Obviously. ;)

Anybody want a purebred, housebroken pixiebob? She’s a delightful and personable cat, and they’re just heartbroken about this. Inquiries to chet@nogators.com.

ps: Also, polydactyl.

Catastrophic Theater is featured in the Chronicle today in a story wherein they make a few truly excellent announcements about the season and year ahead, the biggest of which Heathen Central has been extremely excited about for a few months now:

• Bluefinger, a world-premiere rock-opera to be created in collaboration with Charles Thompson — aka Black Francis, best known as front man for the influential alternative-rock group Pixies — to begin workshops in December for a premiere here in early 2010.

But that’s not all; in addition, new work with Tony Barilla’s coming, also a production of another Lisa D’Amour play this fall, and of course another Tamarie show before terribly long.

Congrats to Jason, Tam, and the whole Catastrophic family.

After several years off, Your Favorite Heathen are once again doing the Cookoff. We realized with no small amount of shock that we haven’t done it since the rail opened or Reliant was in place, so in many ways it’s a whole different thing. The train makes it RULE, though; parking is no longer an issue at all.

Wednesday

Uneventful; it always is. It’s quiet, with few folks around since many of the corporate tents — and no small number of the private ones — have no event scheduled for that night. A few, like Cold River, do a sponsor-only party on Wednesday, and we never miss it — it may be the best steak we get all year. We made an error when, having just missed a train, we elected to drive down — only to discover parking was a nightmare even on the least-populated night since so many lots weren’t even open yet. Oops. We did, however, notice that the tent’s new position is:

• No longer next door to another very loud private tent;
• Pleasantly close to the main stage; and
• Immediately adjacent to a booth selling, among other things, chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick.

Make of this what you will. We ate a lot, drank a little, and were home by 10 or 1030, and behaved well enough that I was back at my desk by 0630 on Thursday.

Thursday

A little bit louder now, to coin a phrase; this time it was the Heathens plus the betrothed pair of Little Miss Redhead and the Dancin’ Teachin’ Drama Machine (HeatheNames subject to adjustment later). After a much smoother trip down — the train drops you off maybe half a mile from the tent, and the walk is through the carnival — we were among the first in line for the food, which was a lucky thing as we were all four starving. Well fed, we went a-wandering to check out the lay of the land; on Wednesday, we’d noticed a seriously hoppin’ party in the northwest corner, but couldn’t see whose tent it was, so we went up to see who they were. Aha. Corporate: It’s for Cazadores, Bacardi’s premium tequila, and the “tent” is only a “tent” in the loosest possible sense. It’s got a faux-adobe front, for crying out loud, though it’s certainly the only time I’ve seen a pseudo-traditional hacienda-type tent with a velvet rope. Recession or no, the rum people were definitely pulling out all the stops. We kept it low key — as all loyal Heathen understand, pacing is vitally important in four-day party situations — but the official log does contain a few entries of note:

• Choice quote: “I’ll bet the Amish look great naked.” (LMR)
• Even at the Cookoff, nobody loves Centerpoint; their (large) tent was nearly devoid of people.
• Is it more “BBQ Burning Man” or “BBQ Ren Faire?” Hard to say.
• Frankly, as an eighties cover band, you’re probably doing it wrong if you think you can do justice to both Loverboy *and* the Cure. Just saying.

Stay tuned for Friday and Saturday recaps as they become available.

Note iconography under “Wed,” below — as well as the contrasting high temp predicted for Sunday.

Check out the Spacetaker Winter Art Market, today through Sunday, at Winter Street Studios.

Spacetaker is excited to bring Houston-area holiday shoppers a three day celebration of creativity, fun and unique gift buying at the Winter Holiday Art Market. WHAM features over 60 local artists, artist demonstrations and children’s art activities. Find everything from paintings to prints, photographs, jewelry, crafts, ornaments, soap, and more! Give something unique this year!

Live music, open bar and yummy food from Beavers on Friday and Saturday nights —- With a jazzy Sunday to wind down the weekend.

More info at Spacetaker.org.

The DirecTV dude finally came to reaim the dish. And there was much rejoicing, as well as a sudden drop in how much Bittorrent and iTunes downloading we’re doing.

Right, so, we understand. We’re really some of the lucky ones, since we got power back so quickly (for the record, three and a half days, give or take). We’re not even bitching — really — about the lack of TV, since we understand there’s only so many DirecTV crews, and our house too tall (by a lot) for either of us to be willing to go up there and straighten the dish ourselves. For one thing, we’d have to find a ladder that tall first. That’s on us. We’re cool with it.

But for the love of God, Jesus, and Bear Bryant, is it too much to ask for phone and Internet service to last for more than 36 hours without yet another 2-to-12 hour dead period? The storm was nearly three weeks ago, for Christ’s sake. See, this makes it bloody hard for half of us to work, and puts a serious crimp on our ability to keep up with our still-out-of-reach TV shows, and in general makes us both grumpy.

So. Get on this, will you? KTHXBI.

Check out this shot of Downtown Houston’s Chase Tower, which sustained bizarrely heavy damage during Ike; from the linked post:

This view is from the south, showing the southwest and southeast sides of the building. The topmost missing window is on the 47th floor. From about the 30th floor down, all of the windows on the southeast side are missing.

It’s really striking, but more striking is the fact that no other building in downtown Houston sustained this kind of damage at all. I drove downtown on Monday after the storm, and was hard pressed to see more than a random window or two broken in buildings that weren’t Chase. Weird.

It never rains, right? From the Chron: “Tiger reported loose on Bolivar Peninsula, judge says“

GALVESTON — Texas authorities busy trying to clean up after Hurricane Ike have a new problem on their hands: There’s a tiger loose. A county official said today that the animal somehow left its enclosure at an exotic pets center in Crystal Beach. Animal experts are coming in to try and catch the tiger. Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough put it this way: “Turns out there’s a tiger, and I understand he’s hungry … so we’re staying away from him.” Crystal Beach is on the Bolivar Peninsula. The area is one of the hardest-hit by Ike. The news follows reports of a lion holed up in a Baptist church with its owner on Bolivar Peninsula as well as livestock and other animals roaming amid Hurricane Ike’s wreckage.

(Note for non-Texans: for reasons lost to time and known but to God, the chief executive at the county level is called the County Judge. Despite the implications of the title, they are executive, not judicial, positions.)

“Why are YOU sucking up all the God love?” — Joie Brun, in re: the testimony of some random Ike survivor and their conviction that “God’s taking care of us.”

You know, things got pretty wild over the course of Ike, but I’m pretty sure it was never actually as bad as this screenshot from the Chron suggests.

Houston, as you may have heard, has recently had some Weather.

Heathen Central escaped fairly unscathed from an existential point of view, but with some fairly basic spiritual failures: namely, the unimpeded flow of electrons into the household has been, well, impeded. Further, attempts at the usage of electrons to communicate with the outside world, in any media whatsoever, fails utterly. Additionally, the lack of incoming electrons has prevented the communication with the satellite entertainment overlords, which completes a sort of trifecta of failure, and there we are.

In the face of these problems, we’ve decamped to Camp Ike, in the bizarre Heights area of Houston. Wild and untamed, the Heights are chockablock with Cottage Folk, Neovictorians, and snooty yuppies, but also turns out to be the home of longtime Heathen associates Joie Brun and Karl Ludwig, whose union is in some small way the fault of Heathen Central. (It’s a long story we will no doubt someday relate to their charming pair of tykes.) Somehow, these fine folk have managed to find themselves among the tiny, tiny minority of Houstonians (sub 5%) for whom the free flow of electrons remains unimpeded. They, too, are unable to communicate with the satellite overlords, but the presence of incoming electrons means the conversion of heat to cold continues unabated, and the Intarwub remains accessible.

Consequently, not only have Mrs Heathen and I packed our bags for bizarre Heights environs, but also the Ear o’Corn clan, Rhymes-with-Schloachim, and the dynamic duo of Ultilopp and Mama Nia. Joined in our adventures by Papa Brun — on loan from his usual clan in Florida — we will empty freezers, make cocktails, play Rockband, and fight crime from this ersatz Hall of Justice until further notice.

It might be fun to build a table of length-of-acquaintance for this little party, but it’s complex and wacky and I’m not gonna do it right now. I will note that multiple of these relationships date back to 1989 at least, and Ear O’Corn and I have been co-conspirators since 1986. Ultilopp and Mama Nia are relative newcomers, but they fit in like custom parts. Camp Ike may not be ideal, but goddamn I’m sure it’s gonna be fun, and it’s hard to conceive of a group of folks I’d rather be inconvenienced with (or that we’d rather inconvenience).

And all hail Joie and Karl for their generosity. Photo documentation is, we suspect, inevitable.

Inshallah.

We’re fine. No damage, but no power either. We’re at a friend’s house; they are, unaccountably, among the 4% of Houston who still have power.

Ike. A bearsuit. Yes.

Apparently, Anderson Cooper is in Midtown, and Geraldo is down on the Seawall. Watch. REally.

Houston now has free wifi downtown. Neat.

Cracked’s list of 15 images you won’t believe aren’t photoshopped is only slightly amusing until you get to number 6, an art installation that was about half a mile due west of Heathen Central until it was dismantled.

It looks like it might even get more dramatic than Rita. Frankly, we need the rain.

No, we’re not evacuating. Please.

NYT: Houston resists recycling, and independent streak is cited.

While most large American cities have started ambitious recycling programs that have sharply reduced the amount of trash bound for landfills, Houston has not.

The city’s shimmering skyline may wear the label of the world’s energy capital, but deep in Houston’s Dumpsters lies a less glamorous superlative: It is the worst recycler among the United States’ 30 largest cities.

Houston recycles just 2.6 percent of its total waste, according to a study this year by Waste News, a trade magazine. By comparison, San Francisco and New York recycle 69 percent and 34 percent of their waste respectively. Moreover, 25,000 Houston residents have been waiting as long as 10 years to get recycling bins from the city.

Ouch.

The city picks up garbage at some 340,000 households, and fewer than half have recycling bins. About 25,000 households are on the waiting list for the bins, but the city says it cannot afford more bins.

Those without the special bins must cart their recyclable garbage to one of just nine full-service drop-off depots in the city.

But when Monica Pope, a locally renowned chef, approached a city-run recycling depot in her silver pick-up truck full of containers, she was turned away.

“They said my truck was too full,” Ms. Pope recalled, laughing. “There are cultures that just don’t get it, and, unfortunately, Houston is one of them.”

Now, Ms. Pope recycles at what she says is a safer, cleaner and more convenient drop-off center operated by an autonomous city within Houston, saving $6,000 a year in trash fees.

So. Proud. Oh: Unsurprisingly, this story — which quotes our mayor, even — isn’t mentioned at all at our local paper. The Chron is, however, all over the sudden shutdown of hundreds of “Bennigan’s” restaurants, so we have that going for us.

I just got actual useful information from Houstonist. This is shocking and, frankly, almost unprecedented.

Near my house, or near-ish, anyway, is something called the Carolina Collective. It’s a virtual office for the self-employed and work-at-home types who may need office-type support on an ad-hoc or less-than-renting-a-space basis, or who crave the occasional water-cooler aspects of office life. I can actually conceive of using this from time to time, especially since it appears to include available meeting space if you become a member.

Casual, ad-hoc use is free. Usage more than a couple times a week appears to mean you need to pony up $125 a month, but that includes nontrivial benefits like access to food and the aforementioned conference rooms. There are other packages available as well.

DiverseWorks is having a “1-ish K” race on Saturday:

DiverseWorks will hold the 1ST ANNUAL 1(ISH) K FOOT RACE to help commemorate its 25th Anniversary Season. Both ELITE and MASTERS Level competitors will scramble across the demanding ONE-KILOMETER (OR SO) course in a test of strength and endurance to raise money and awareness for the non-profit contemporary art center, DiverseWorks. The 1(ish) K is SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 2008 at 6PM at DIVERSEWORKS at 1117 East Freeway, Houston, Texas. The entry fee is $25. VIP competitors paying $100 (or more) will receive a 5-minute head start and will be guaranteed to be a winner.

DiverseWorks will have plenty of “HYDRATION” and “ENERGY REPLENISHMENT” stations on site and will have a marked outer boundary of the official course to ensure runners compete within a cordoned off area. For optimal weather conditions, the race will promptly start bright and early at 6PM. The course will remain open until 10PM to allow sufficient time for all runners to complete the demanding one-kilometer (or so) course. Official judges will be on hand to insure an honest and fair race is conducted.

Register at their web site. I’m actually going to be out of town, or I’d be there with bells on.

Local TV station announces they’ll be reporting both Fahrenheit and Celsius temps going forward, and madcap idiocy ensues in the comments. Gist: “we don’t need no booklearnin’!”

There was a light rail accident in downtown Houston yesterday. Like virtually every other such accident, it’s because the driver thought he’d race the train:

A Metro light rail train collided with a sport utility vehicle in downtown Houston, sending several people to the hospital, authorities said.

The train struck the Chrysler Aspen about 3:15 p.m. Tuesday on westbound Pease at Main, officials said.

Metro Police Chief Tom Lambert said the driver briefly stopped at the red light, then drove into the path of the oncoming train.

The train struck the right side of the Chrysler, pinning the male passenger inside the vehicle.

“The passenger had to be removed from the vehicle by the Houston Fire Department,” Lambert said.

Rafe Colburn loves the Wire, but what gets us is this bit from the end of the post:

The last point I’d make about the show is that it is truly a love letter to the city of Baltimore as it really exists in the eyes of the writers. You can’t watch the show and not fall in love with Baltimore, ugly as it is. It makes me wish someone would write a really good show about Houston, my favorite deeply flawed city.

What, you mean Houston Knights wasn’t enough? (heh)

It rained a little here yesterday. Everything’s fine. It always is.

Our dear relatives, we understand, are taken in by the national media’s narrative of “Houston” — a single, small place, apparently — being flooded by the remnants of a tropical storm (with a very pretty name).

Here’s the deal. (We said this once before, remember.) “Houston” is not like most places. It’s much, much bigger. Our city covers some 600 square miles. Some of that is on a flood plain, yes, but (as we have mentioned before), this is not where we live or work. Even Allison, in 2001, didn’t put water anywhere near our front door. Erin, God love her, was just a thunderstorm where we live.

“But people DIED,” we can almost hear you cry, “surely you’re understating!” Actually, we’re not (and don’t call us Shirley). Houston is also coastal plain, meaning that in any serious rainfall we will accumulate water in low-lying areas. Despite the near constant nature of this, every time it happens several folks decide to try to drive through it, and sometimes this is a fatal error for whatever reason. We also understand that a roof caved in somewhere down near Clear Lake, but, frankly, if it caved in under yesterday’s rain, we’d be thinking about “poor maintenance” rather than “storm” as a proximate cause.

So, yes, we’re fine. It rained a little. Everything’s fine. It always is.

We just stepped out for a minute, thereby encountering the midday heat.

Approximate Houston temperature: Eleventy Billion Degrees. Cars were vaporizing into superheated plasma. Concrete was boiling.

Marvin Zindler, Eyeeee-Witness News, 1921 – 2007. He’s got a Wikipedia article, and should, which probably makes him unique among Houston TV newspeople. Without him, Houston’s a little less weird, and we’re poorer for it.

So, we’re confused by something.

Just now, we’re installing Fedora on a test box in Heathen Labs, and it wanted to know what zone we were in. ZERO US cities in the Central time zone were listed.

This is closely related to an Apple phenomenon, wherein the largest city in Texas (Houston) isn’t listed in their city-picker for anything — though Dallas and Austin are. WTF, people? Do you not look at population data?

So, Mrs Heathen’s briefcase broke, and we need to get it fixed. The leather’s fine; it’s just that the side hardware where the strap clips on, well, wore through. It appears the quick-clip on the end of the strap was much, much harder than the D-ring on the bag, since the clip’s unscathed, but one D-ring is worn completely through, and the other is nearly there.

We had a not-terribly-good experience with Houston Shoe Hospital on a handbag repair a while back. Where else might we go to have this done? We need to get it done soon, since Levenger has agreed to reimburse us for the repair cost. Reply in comments or via email. Thanks!

We didn’t realize Chron foodwriter Alison Cook was there, but we can confirm her observations that the fireworks views were fabulous, as was the WHOLE GOAT, not to mention the booze. Our delightfully insane friend Igor put together a little pot-luck soire in a snooty hotel suite at what used to be the Warwick overlooking Hermann Park; much fine food and booze was on hand, along with a very diverse salad of people. We’re told some relative of the deposed Shah (the 1925 one, not the 1979 one) made the guacamole, which is the sort of thing that can really only happen in Houston, so there you go. The suite was lovely, but the service deeply questionable, as Cook observed.

We are, of course, going back next year; Igor’s already booked the “Texas Tycoon” suite for 4 July 2008, which (thank God) falls on a Friday.

Inshallah.

Just now, we heard a bit of commotion and looked out our window to see a shirtless man quietly being arrested by three of Houston’s Finest, right there in our driveway, between Mrs Heathen’s car and the trashcan. He had apparently been nabbed red-handed rooting through said trash (which contained an old, nonfunctional, but once-upon-a-time expensive CD player). He was not being arrested for the trash-rooting; rather, he was being popped for burglary elsewhere in the neighborhood this afternoon.

So, it’s a matter of choosing between “Holy crap, there’s a BURGLAR IN OUR DRIVEWAY being arrested by three cops!” and “Holy crap, there’s a burglar in our driveway BEING ARRESTED BY THREE COPS!”

(P.S.: Don’t tell Mrs Heathen.)

For NO APPARENT REASON AT ALL (ha, ha), our friend Kirk‘s car is up at Wired’s Table of Malcontents blog via some Clemson forum, and subsequently Digg.

Tonight, the Houston Bar Association is presenting an all-lawyer musical comedy called “Draculaw.”

A (partial) list of mosquito-borne diseases.

We think Jo is a little nutty for even suggesting it.

The Houck House over at Braes and Gramercy is no more. Expect a classless, absurd, and fundamentally uninteresting minimansion on the property soon. Possibly two, since the developer’s job isn’t done unless the houses are almost touching, right?

Go here and do this. You won’t be sorry.

(Especially clever Heathen will also enjoy the Turrell tunnel, and will further realize why said installation is a particular favorite of ours at Heathen Central.)

Not far from Heathen Central, HPD found a house filled with pot:

Investigators from the Houston Police Department’s narcotics division say the single-story brick residence was home to one of the largest, most sophisticated “grow houses” Houston has ever seen.

Inside the dwelling at 1202 W. Drew, investigators found an estimated 1,000 marijuana plants in large plastic trays, many ready for harvest. Every room in the house was used for cultivation, with high-tech soil-free hydroponic equipment and special lights to simulate sunlight and a watering system on an electrical timer. The kitchen stored fertilizer and insecticide. The total value of the harvest in a year was estimated at $3.8 million, HPD Sgt. John Yencha said.

Montrose RULES.

This evening, we decided we’d like to watch a movie not yet on our Netflix queue, so we ventured to the last surviving independent rental venue in Houston of which we are aware, Audio/Video Plus (they do not appear to have a web presence, which as you’ll see is hardly surprising).

Heretofore, when we’ve wanted the odd ad-hoc rental, we went to Cactus, a locally owned and operated music and video shop that’s been in Houston for years and years and years. Sadly, last year the owners retired and, in the absence of a buyer, closed the store for the last time. We miss it. Since then, Mrs Heathen and I have done all our renting with Netflix except for a sad weekend when we tried out Hollywood, only to become so frustrated with their response to unplayable DVDs that we fired them immediately.

At the time, we thought — foolishly, as it turns out — that our real option ought to have been the two branches of AVPlus, the last vestige of local rental in Houston, said to be a cinephile’s dream. We figured we’d get there eventually; the inner loop store isn’t far from Heathen HQ.

Well, tonight was the night. When we arrived at the shop, we were at first confused, as the parking lot was utterly empty. Still, they appeared well-lit and open, so in we went, and asked the counter girl about a membership. That’s when she said words that, from her tone, she knew to be discouraging and bizarre:

“Ok, it’s a two dollar processing fee. We need your driver’s license and a credit card. We only rent VHS.”

Heathen Central does not now even HAVE a VHS player hooked up, and we’re not even sure if we still own one. Furthermore, PAYING someone to rent tape when DVDs are available seems like the fullest folly; why pay the same money for a crappy picture and shitty sound that you’d pay for high resolution and a 5.1 surround track?

Frankly, no wonder their parking lot was empty. Independent Houston, we tried, we really did. But tonight, we rented from Blockbuster. There appears to be no local venue from whom we can rent DVDs, and we’re unwilling compromise on experience just to keep our money local. After all, making the effort to buy local usually means HIGHER quality, not lower.

Finally, we’ll just say we think Ray put it best:

No, I ain’t got a fax machine! I also ain’t got an Apple IIc, polio, or a falcon!

Or, as it happens, a VCR. Join the 90s, AVPlus, or die the sad, slow death of a dinosaur left behind by the market.

Our pal Tony has put a good chunk of his music up for free download. Check it out. He’s good.

(Also, Triple-F, note photo.)

Merry Christmas from the Family, a little Holiday Robert Earl Keen from Houstonist:

Our pals at IBP have a real winner on their hands again with Hide Town, which was written for them by award-winning playwright Lisa D’Amour. The Houston Press loved it, as usual.

Apocalyptic, strange and wonderfully entertaining, Lisa D’Amour’s Hide Town, created with company members from Infernal Bridegroom Productions, is everything experimental theater should be.

The tickets are cheap, the seats are close, and the beer is cold. Come check it out!