Roger Gray

In Your Face

by Roger Gray

It Could be the World’s Largest Self-storage Facility –

In the wake of the Olympic diversion, and that’s all it was, we now are faced with what to do with the Dome. And since I am not risking my media pass by not using the corporately correct moniker, the “Reliant Astrodome,” I can call it whatever I like. And I call it gone. I have no inside information on this and may well be wrong. But let’s be honest about the town we love, folks. Houston doesn’t do history. I’ll bet you a round of drinks at the Shamrock Hotel bar that the Dome will become a very large collection of commemorative pieces of plastic and steel within five years. Hell, we’re lucky Old Market Square still exists, for all we care about our past. As the saying goes, if it has a second coat of paint on it in Houston, it’s historic. Out of some misguided, talk show-fed idea about property rights, we just knock it down, pave it over and put up something twice as big and half as attractive. That’s how West U. has increasingly become a repetitive collection of zero-lot-line-brain-dead-red-brick-Georgians with all the predictability of a Houston Press “best-of” issue. I hope I’m wrong. My late father and I spent many a sweaty evening at Buff and then Colt Stadium swatting mosquitoes the size of yorkies, and the Dome was Roy Hofheinz’ answer to our collective prayers. I’ll miss it.

He’ll Make You an Offer You Can’t Understand –

Not content with trying to kneecap our Metro rail system and speed up the pouring of more concrete to take folks out to his district, it seems our own political Tony Soprano, Tom “The Bugman” DeLay, has it in for all forms of rail transit. Amtrak was in the crosshairs of his committee recently and will be put on a starvation diet, which will no doubt curtail some Houston service. Never mind that airlines are suckling at the federal hog or that airports are taxpayer funded and staffed. Never mind that the highway system is underwritten with state and federal money, Amtrak, by gosh, has to make a profit. That this hack has risen to his current party position is enough to make Barry Goldwater weep.

“We Can’t Stop for an Interview – We’re Late for a Meeting of the Harper Valley PTA “

Then we have the Republican Leadership Council in Montgomery County, which forced the placement of a strategic fig leaf on a replica of Michelangelo’s “David,” which stands strangely atop an Oshman’s sporting goods store. Well, Dave is pretty buff, I guess. And that’s the issue with David and the pictures of naked statues in a nearby Italian restaurant also being boycotted by the group. Any nudity, however famous, classical or artistic, is dirty and ought to go. And if you’re a fan of that renaissance Hugh Hefner, well that’s just tough garbanzos. We have children to protect! They can wait until marriage to discover their naughty bits just like we did.

Come Here You Little ‘Ole Cretaceous Snuggle Bunny!

A skeleton rumored to be 11,000 years old has been found in the wildlife refuge in Brazoria County. We hear that Anna Nicole Smith is investigating his bank account, but plans for the nuptials are still up in the air.

You Can’t Treat our Shara Like Gingrich’s First Wife!

I know nothing lasts forever, but it’s still tough to watch as my former colleagues in Houston media are swept away one by one by the corporate winds of war. First, the finest sportscaster in recent memory in our town, Craig Roberts, is dumped in favor of a blow-dried Ken doll. Then Shara Fryer, who perennially sits atop our drool-inducing “Babe with Brains” list, is demoted after a bout with cancer, proving ABC-Disney has all the sensitivity of Donald Duck on angel dust. And now the favorite escort of divorced River Oakies and all-around utility infielder on the air, Bob Boudreaux, is banished to the island of lost anchors. I hope there’s no truth to the rumor that Dave Ward found a horse head in his bed. Just in case, though, I understand Zindler has some hurry-up surgery scheduled. I haven’t seen the market research, but I’m sure the snare-drum-tight-skin look hits that female demo dead center.