Living, loving and hating in Houston

Chasing a dream job that turned nightmare faster than you can say “apparently undue diligence,” I packed up my 54 years of life in the San Francisco Bay Area last August and moved to Houston.

When most people hear “California to Texas” — particularly people who aren’t real familiar with either state but think they are — they assume you’ve experienced culture shock at Why On Earth Would You Do That To Yourself levels.

To the uninitiated, it’s a caricature constructed on time-honored but tired tropes.

To the ill-informed, taking cues from Hollywood and every other media outlet that specializes in over-generalization, California is the land surfers, stoners, valley girls, arrogant and filthy rich 12-year-old tech wizards, surgically enhanced damn-near-everythings, and butt-naked flower children crunching kale on the coast.

Wildly conversely, the stereotypes of Texas include “Howdy Pahdnahs,” Nolan Ryans and ranchers, loud and obnoxious oil barons, huge-hair hussies, huge-hat and spur-booted rodeo wranglers, cow tippers, tumbleweeds and Tex-Mex for miles, and drawlin’ debutantes lookin’ for a shot and a poke Deep In The Heart Of.

(Props to my man Scott “The Mayor of Respiteville” Palmer, a native Texan and as helpful a man as you’ll meet, for providing the beautifully colorful turn of phrase that is “lookin’ for a shot and a poke.” So pro.)

You’ll get this reminder from me ad nauseam: Stereotypes exist for a reason. There’s some truth to ‘em. I can say that with confidence about California because I lived there forever.

But Texas? Eh. Can’t really say, mostly because Houston is different. Quite a bit different, from what Houstonians tell me. Like it’s a state unto its own, immune to the cartoon conceptions. Like Houston isn’t IN the Lone Star State; it IS the Lone Star State. Emphasis “Lone.”

I wouldn’t go THAT far. I’ve seen a good number of big-ass belt buckles and shit-kickers. But I have been pleasantly surprised to realize — almost Instantly upon arrival — that the massive adjustment I assumed would come with my new home would be minimal at most.

Truth is, Houston is a lot like every other major American city. There’s good, bad, beauty and blight.

There’s a lot about it I really like. Love, even. And there’s some things I don’t. And while “hate” is a strong word that I tried to teach my daughters never to use, they’re grown now, and the word just works better in a headline.

So without further ado, and I’m King Ado so thanks for enduring the ado, here are some things I’ve come to dig, and some that make me want to dig ‘em a hole.

LOVE: Houston reminds me of my native Bay Area in many ways, the most significant being that there’s great cultural diversity.

People from all walks of life, people from all corners of the globe country, people from all over the globe. And no matter what your culinary, nightlife, musical or living situation predilections might be, you can find a spot that’s going to whet whatever appetite needs whetting. You might have to ask around a bit if your boat-floating fetish is freaky, but you’ll find it.

HATE: The heat and humidity. I’ve only been here for 11 months, but I’ve yet to experience anything resembling the tradition seasons of fall, winter or spring. There’s not even what this soft NorCal boy recognizes as summer. It’s a season with which I’m unfamiliar, but I like to name stuff, so I’ve named this oppressive season “Are You F***ing Kidding Me?!?” And it’s celebrated daily by losing nine pounds walking to pick up the mail.

To describe it, I’ll paraphrase the greatest thing I’ve ever heard from the mouth of Japanese baseball legend Ichiro Suzuki, who always knew WAY for English than he let on. He was actually talking about Kansas City in summer, and he used a different animal in his analogy, but it’s too cool to not crib: Houston, far more often than not, is hotter than two raccoons — enter Ichiro, verbatim — “fucking in a wool sock.”

LOVE: Public transportation. The Metro bus and train system is mostly money, making its Bay Area counterpart look like a network of clown cars. Metro, in my experience, is reliable and clean. It’s a big city, so you’ll definitely run into some vagrants and the lovely scent of urine from time to time, but I suppose that’s the price of cosmopolitan living in the big city.

And Metro is cheap! To get back from a doctor appointment today, I needed to catch a bus and two trains. Total cost: $1.25.

HATE: Thunderstorms. I don’t mind the outta-nowhere rain that makes it seem like Noah 2.0 should be busy at work on the Ark 2.0 like, NOW. And I don’t mind getting wet, because the wetness of the skies is a billion times more preferable than the wetness of the inevitable swamp-ass that comes with Are You F***ing Kidding Me?!

And never mind it’s a hot rain. An 86-degree downpour is a welcome little break from the typical feels-like temp of 157. And I do mean little. No matter how savagely it dumps, it usually stops as quickly as it starts.

The lightning is pretty cool, too. it’s part and parcel with thunderstorms, of course, but there is beauty in that. But the thunder itself? I don’t care how many horror flicks you’ve seen, but you haven’t been frightened until until you get a 2:30 AM clap that makes you sympathize with those who live in, I don’t know, Fallujah, and have experienced a bomb exploding in their bedroom.

And I know it’s awfully aggressive for a second urine reference, but I don’t know any other way to say it: It’ll scare the piss right out of you.

LOVE: Passionate sports town. Delusionally so, particularly as it applies to Rockets fans, who seem to think James Harden is a winner and that their two world titles weren’t the result of Michael Jordan’s first retirement. And they still rationalize the Astros cheating scandal, like everyone uses garbage cans and cameras and drones and helicopters to steal signs.

But it was time to let that go, and that’s why it was so cool that the Astros won the World Series last fall. Having grown up a fan of the Giants and A’s, and having been lucky enough to cover Oakland’s Big Three era, and the world championship era of recent Giants vintage, the similarities were inescapable. Young, relatable, prone to late-inning, magic, and straight-up likable, they were must see TV and rewarded your interest in the most euphoric of ways. I was really happy for their die-hards, and happy for Art Howe and Dinn Mann. They’d all suffered enough.

As for the football team, I say they don’t win jack until they change the dumbest name on Planet Sport. The Houston Texans? Someone actually threw that out at a meeting and got thumbs up from all corners of the room? Good lord. Can’t wait for the rest of the country to catch on.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the Portland Oregonians!

HATE: Stadium confusion and goofiness. The soccer stadium used to be called EaDo, and that’s still what Metro calls the corresponding train stop. But now it’s called Shell Energy Stadium. Is it really that hard to print up a few new signs?

The football stadium used to be called Reliant, and now it’s called NRG. Virtually every giant building here has the name of an energy monolith attached to it, so if your glass is half full, “NRG” is kind of clever. But if your glass is half empty, it reeks of trying a little bit too hard.

And I’ve always been under the impression that a nickname by definition is short for something, so I don’t quite understand why the baseball stadium, Minute Maid, is called “The Juice Box.” Ahem. Three syllables is three syllables, people. And if you want to get technical and say that it’s “Minute Maid Park,“ three syllables isn’t all that short for four.

 And finally …

LOVE: Y’all. I say it all the time, y’all. It’s catchy, y’all. Sue me, y’all.

HATE: Sprawl. Houston is spread so wide and has such confusing roads and highways and freeways and speedways and every-which-ways, it doesn’t matter if your destination is five miles away or 30. It’s gonna take you 30 minutes to get there.

Just take Metro, y’all. It’s only $1.25!

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