Things I Miss about Houston
(Written by a guy who's just moved to San Francisco)
FAQ version 1.0p
Compiled by J. nuyyaj@aol.com, yun@slip.net
I. Contents:
(1) Contents
(2) Frequently-asked questions
(3) Top ten list of things I miss about Houston
(4) Top ten list of things I don't miss about Houston
(5) Top ten list of things I like better about San Francisco
(6) Top ten list of things that'd make me fly back to Houston tomorrow
II. Frequently-asked questions (this is, after all, supposed to be a FAQ)
(1) Why did I move to San Francisco?
Its climate was always to my liking, and, second to Houston, it registered highest on my local support tally--three good friends and one blood relative.
(2) How long do I plan on staying?
At least until September, at which time there is a good chance I will relocate to Los Angeles.
(3) What am I doing here?
Well, waking up later than everyone else here (which means, because of the time difference, a whole lot later than everyone in Houston), eating 99-cent Whoppers for lunch and Taco Bell for dinner and drinking Mountain Dew with every meal, playing Street Fighter or basketball, and going to bed knowing I owe my soul to Visa--in other words, exactly the same thing I do wherever I am.
(4) When am I going to stop wasting my time on these kinds of stupid things and get on with my life?
September, maybe?
(5) Am I seeing someone now? (This is the question on everyone's mind, isn't it?)
Look how long this is, and you tell me.
III. Top ten list of things I miss about Houston (in spine-tingling reverse order!)
(10) Gina Gaston--and, I confess, Sandra Gin: The Channel 13 news anchorwoman/reporter always made those mornings I managed to wake up so pleasurable, I would've sworn I had a good breakfast, too. I thank KTRH for allowing me a full hour to partake in her Nubian beauty, her strong, articulate voice, and her playful musings with Ed and Tom and the other guy whose name I can't remember. I suspect that my feelings for her Channel 11 counterpart on the weekends, for whom I at first felt the bitterest of contempt because she replaced the adorable Nesita Kwan as house Asian, arose as a subconscious response to my imminent departure, a last-ditch effort on the part of my psyche to maintain my connection with the city.
(9) Shorter distances between places: While a trip to the Woodlands or to Clear Lake was quite a journey to the Houstonian whose legs were much too long for the average Japanese front seat and whose soft buttocks were unusually susceptible to hemorrhoidal inflammation, visits to Berkeley and San Jose, though technically not geographically further away, seem to take all that much longer, what with heavier traffic, the odd body of water or mountain range that has to be traversed--and not to mention the fact that I have to do the driving.
(8) Target: In fact, there are several stores in the bay area, but they are scattered far more sparsely than back in Texas. The nearest one to downtown San Francisco is twenty minutes away by freeway. The same applies to Office Depot. Cross-reference with previous item.
(7) Tolls that you could avoid: Bridges have no feeder roads. Period.
(6) Houston Rockets: No one predicted the Golden State Warriors would get to the finals this past season, and they didn't.
(5) Smooth(er) roads: Be it a treasured aspect of the sense of history and tradition sought to be conveyed and therefore deliberately preserved by the local tourist board, or just the depressed state economy, the streets look as if they haven't been repaired since that seventies cop show--or, for that matter, any of the countless car chases that were filmed on them (my favorite being the one from the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt.) All those jumps, I guess.
(4) 1-800-510-SEXY chick: None of her classic spots grace the local television late night commercial airtime. Perhaps superior cable access lowers my opportunity to catch her. I contemplated the possibility of a gay and lesbian-backed liberal conspiracy suppressing her and her kind of advertising here, but the ready sale of pornographic magazines out of newspaper-like coinboxes on the streets makes me think twice. More likely is that she put an end to her acting career and went to law school or something.
(3) Being one of only a few cool motorcycling dudes: I mean, everyone here's got a bike, and better ones, too. The other day I saw a leather-clad lady giving a man a ride! Talk about fantasies...!
(2) Taco Cabana: They didn't invent the fajita, nor are they the only ones who serve them, but they did have them when you really need them at three in the morning. My best wishes also to Lai Lai (the most for your money), Lucky Village II (the best buffet in town), Texadelphia (before they changed their meat, that is), Fudruckers (only for the mushrooms and endless supply of tomatoes), and Chick-Fil-A and Long John Silver's (which are out here somewhere, I just don't know where), all of whose establishments I expect to go under without my continued patronage.
(1) Anything cheap: This includes food, clothing, gas, rent, movies, insurance, and, most troubling, all those silly things I end up buying the first time I see them. The only exceptions--pay phone calls (twenty cents to dial, but, then again, your money doesn't last as long) and Internet service.
IV. Top ten list of things I don't miss about Houston
(10) Jim "Gallery Furniture" MacInvale: No, really--I don't miss him at all.
(9) Disrespect: Not only did the Rockets have to win the NBA Championship twice in a row before Hakeem got to be in a Taco Bell commercial, but I couldn't stand watching CNN and never seeing Houston in the list of American cities they show tomorrow's weather for--come on, they would include Des Moines and Halifax!
(8) Stop signs: Suburbia, where they are more frequently found, might as well be back in Texas, it's so far away. The preference here is for traffic lights, which, I suppose, are better understood the more international community.
(7) Seeing grown men dress like cowboys: The crazy thing is, they were proud of it!
(6) Warner Cable: Four million people and only thirty-five channels. No Comedy Central (no Mystery Science Theater 3000), no Sci-Fi Channel (no Robey on Friday the 13th: The Series), no fX (no Wonder Woman and Bruce Lee as Kato on Green Hornet), no Bravo. (No Bravo?) Poor reception, even with the cable.
(5) Zone-free city development: Not one of my everyday gripes, granted, but I know my enjoyment of Houston was lessened by it somehow or other.
(4) Houston Metro: The city was just too damned big for the five or so buses that ran at once, or so it seemed to commuters who sat waiting for hours for them to arrive. Lines 2 (Bellaire), 77 (Calhoun), and 167 (Fondren Express) all followed a bizarre schedule that made me see them leaving the stop, and, working in conjunction with the lights and the on-coming traffic, take off just short of me making it no matter how much my time for the hundred-meter improved.
(3) Mosquitoes: Of course this was a terrible curse borne of mine own delectable flesh; nonetheless, they were the reason I locked my door at night, not fear of home invasions or escaping air conditioning. The Devadanam estate on Beechnut was notorious for its infestation. Here, the homeless population fosters annoying swarms of flies, but at least they (the flies) don't bite.
(2) That bump on Hillcroft on the right side of the road after Gulfton before you turn onto Sands Point: By the time I got the hang of swerving around it, I was gone. The whole street was a sore on my mouth during my time there. It was full of cracks and uneven repair jobs, and the lights from 59 to Westheimer seemed to see me coming and turn red on me. The Harwin intersection was the worst--no one there, in the middle of the night, and I'd be waiting for it to change on my way back from Randall's. Just thinking about it gets me steamed, damnit!
(1) The weather (you know this one'll be up there in the next section): One-hundred-percent humidity? Doesn't that mean the air is all water? That'd explain the rain.
V. Top ten list of things I like better about San Francisco
(10) Those pornographic magazines readily sold out of newspaper-like coinboxes on the streets I mentioned back in Section III, number (4).
(9) The view: Whether you're jogging or roller-blading along the Embarcadero, taking a break from pan-handling, or about to leap to your death off the Golden Gate Bridge, you just have to stop to admire that breath-taking sight of the bay and the great Pacific Ocean that lies beyond it.
(8) Live 105: The first commercial alternative radio station I've ever heard, it impressed me so many years ago by playing Devo's "Beautiful World." Sure, every hour begins with Pearl Jam and ends with Nirvana, but Z107 only wishes it could be so refined.
(7) Old Asians speak perfect English: Freaky to us second generation-ers, none of whose mothers recognize the use of articles nor differentiate between infinitives and gerunds, even more so to see them picking out of trash cans in public just like the white people. Must be because cross-cultural burn-outs like me all end up here in California.
(6) Lane-splitting: Cutting between cars during rush hour traffic on a motorcycle is all the more rewarding here in California not only because it's perfectly legal, but also since everyone you do pass up can't laugh at you because it's either so hot outside or it's raining on you like they would get to do on Houston freeways.
(5) Blondie's Pizza: "Make Pizza--Not War," their T-shirts say. When properly prepared (this is more often the case at the Berkeley location than the downtown San Francisco one), it deserves its status as one of my three coast-to-coast favorites, the other two being in Seattle and Boston. Their toppings menu sorely needs anchovies.
(4) BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, an acronym that eludes most riders): As public transportation, it's an anomaly, living up to the convenience that it strives for, easy to use and regularly running on time and generally kinda neat, at least for tourists, newcomers, and the rest of us country-folk accustomed to being train-less. Fares have increased drastically since last I was here, but it is less crowded than the densha in Tokyo, cleaner and safer than the subways in New York City, and cheaper than the monorail at Disneyworld.
(3) Kung Fu Theater: Master Tat's, on at two o'clock in the morning Friday nights, is the show I've always wanted to do--a host with an authentic Oriental accent, guest martial arts instructors, and Chinese restaurant sponsors. Too bad he only shows awful Bruce Li movies. (Actually most of the rest of the abundant Asian programming is pretty lame, soap operas and news in every dialect imaginable, but once in a while, there is a good Hong Kong movie on; last month I saw Best of the Best with Jacky Cheung!)
(2) Yoshinoya: The only branch of this Japanese fast food restaurant chain in Northern California may be an hour away in Cupertino (19825 Stevens Creek Blvd., at Portal Ave.), but the beef bowl's definitely worth the drive. Ask Ron (roneboy@neosoft.com); he's diabetic and must lose weight or else he'll die, and even he agrees with me.
(1) The weather: When it sprinkled for an hour one day out of the month, farmers clamored that the unexpected deluge would destroy their crops. When it reached only eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of the summer, we overworked the city-wide air-conditioning, and I sweat.
VI. Top ten list of things that'd make me fly back to Houston tomorrow
(10) Seismologists predict that the big one will hit tomorrow night
(9) The Rockets put me on the bench--hey, I can shoot as well as Zan Tabak anyday!
(8) Any one of Joe Rocha's friends asks me to marry her
(7) Jim MacInvale dies and leaves me a sizeable chunk of his estate (actually, that's two things)
(6) Madonna tells me to
(5) Taco Cabana starts an all-you-can-eat fajita buffet
(4) They make me their pagan god! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!
(3) Channel 67 puts Secret Agent and The Prisoner back-to-back on Sunday nights again
(2) I discover I am really from the planet Krypton
(1) Well, for a start, all those things I complained about in Section III get fixed! (Lame way to end it, I apologize.)