Mental Naseau - Texas Style

Houston - sometime in September of '08:

General vagrancy and destruction. Vandals, king-pins pimps and all sorts of evil-doers were up to their usual nonsensical no good. All it takes is one notably strong hurricane to bring enough wind pressure to blow them out of their respective rat-holes, gutters, and toppled tree houses. Surprisingly, to me at least, most of the general eveil-doers in Houston (80%) live in or very near tree houses; the worst place to be holed up when a hurricane hits. Lesson learned?

Houston is a sprawling wasteland anyway, with 36" pipes for petroleum transport creating a phenomonally intricate and vast web and huge flames 100 feet in the air that disrupt the night sky but prevent cancer they say. Birds were often seen vaporizing as they tempted fate by passing through the torches. Neil Diamond's "Love on the Rocks," can be heard almost constantly as background music.

Houstong took some damage from Ike, mostly cosmetic, but Houston's soul (if there ever existed one) was severely fucked by the Enron scandal. Two giant building lie dormant (windows now lost in hurricane) and remind commuters each morning of how badly they were duped.

The city is a good place for schemer's of that type - the carnival workers of the high-stakes business world. Summertime carnival workers wouldn't have handled the situation any worse by my own calculations. Some say better if you discount the cases of sexually transmitted diseases among the crowd. Houston's a big and lawless place where you feel like if you're slick enough (with your clothes and hair at the very least) you could steal the stroller from under a baby, or perhaps, if you're a bit more ambitious, scheme an entire city into buying your product that doesn't exist. Hail Minute Maid, which I've indulged and know to exist. It is sweet and delicious just like you no doubt. It comes from Mexico, but its resemblance to American quality is uncanny. At least at the carnival I have a little sympathy for the brave soul that lives on the road, mostly addicted to speed, but sometimes to weird sexual perversion, as alluded to previously. But, I at least know that the carnival is losing proposition or at least a low-risk joke. Houston got caught up in real time carnival economics driven by stupid Texas politicians and highly offensive jokes. The kind that only an uncle by marriage could, and would, tell. I couldn't get it out of my head throughout the duration of my stay.

So, one begins to wonder what their chances are wandering the streets of the 3rd largest metro area in the US: nobody's sure, or at least is willing to tell you or even give you and information that they might have. I did have one encounter personally where information was obtained but by a source that swore certain epidermal consequences if the information was leaked. I'll take that risk, for your own good. According to Mills, three foot hardened machetes, the typical Houston party favor, aren't nearly enought to fend off assassin hoards that were granted military immunity with access to missile launchers, armored bulldozers, and media outlets. They were unforgiving when they got you, and made many women and children wish they had drowned in the sewage pools that were only now receding. Even the big shots locked themselves inside their compounds - with or without electricity.

It goes without saying that I won't be making South Texas home anytime soon. There's simply too much uncertainty and humidity. The chaffing resulting from constant dampness can easily demoralize a man to the point that life's ambitions become mere specters to the mind. Uncertainty is what's made the area prosperous, and dangerous. Some seek the thrill, others simply (and incorrectly) believe it's all a sound and logical life investment. The principal that result's in this thinking is, of course, an inherited trait. And since procreation is a strong Southern principal (in the name of Jesus), the system is perpetual and increases in strength exponentially. I will go back in 20 years or so and be twice as nervous, and twice as selective about which futuristic physical and mental weapons I'll equip myself with (for defensive purposes only). Prais Jesus.