Landmark Houston Music Venue Changes Hands

-FUPPETS- had many fond memories of making the drive to Fitzgerald's, in the Heights area of Houston TX, to go catch shows, both upstairs in the big room and downstairs at Zelda's. Fitzgerald's has been running for 33 years and is known in local lore as the first spot REM played in when they first toured for the Murmur album way back in the day.
Over the last few years, the decaying structure, the overworked and outdated sound system, and the proliferation of other venues have made Fitzgerald's focus mainly on the High School heavy metal band crowd. The time is ripe for a change. Omar Afra, the bad motherfucker/managing editor behind the Free Press Houston, the now-defunct Westheimer Block Party, local veggie restaurant and nighttime concert venue Mango's Cafe, and the ever-more-popular Free Press Summer Fest concerts, has teamed up with Jagi Katial (of Pegstar Concerts) to purchase, renovate, and re-imagine what Fitzgerald's can be for Houston.
-FUPPETS- is very excited.

Here is a short Q&A with Mr. Afra done by the Houston Chronicle Blogs.

Why was this something you felt you wanted to undertake (alongside so many other things on your current to-do list)?

Besides wanting to honor the fabled tradition of Fitz, Jagi and I decided it was high time for a good, medium-size venue -- right about the time we turned away 200 people to the Local Natives show (at Mango's in April). We want to do bigger, better things and reinvigorate the local scene.

Can you go into a few of the changes you'll be making once it reopens?

Booking will completely change. Bigger, better, cutting-edge acts alongside great locals is the focus. Sound system will change.

What about some of the "aesthetic changes?"

The aesthetic changes are very similar to putting lipstick on a pig. A little bit of paint and a whole lot of antiseptic.

Give me something, anything on the "grand reopening" event. Something juicy.

Grand opening will be free. That is all I can say.

Is there anything Fitz has done in the past that you definitely will NOT be doing?

No more pay for play. No more bands that end with 'osis'.

Ideally, what would you like to see the new Fitz become?

I envision Fitz being a cornerstone of the music scene that not only showcases great national and local music but pushes locals to aspire to bigger things.

-FUPPETS- Video Of The Day: De Schmog

In honor of the 40th "Earth Day" (fucking hippies), -FUPPETS- brings you a tune from one of the greatest unknown Houston bands, De Schmog. They were either way ahead of their time or way behind, but either way it was always a fantastic live show.

"How come I'm covered with rocks? It seems like earth is everywhere . . . "

De Schmog - Earth

-FUPPETS- Loves Houston At Night

Many thanks to Sozavac Instigator for providing -FUPPETS- with the link to this great image. Here is the caption for the image, from The Guardian UK.

Houston, do we have problem? This night time image shows the lit-up 60-mile wide Texas city. Houston is home to five million people and is the largest area in the US without formal zoning restrictions on where and how people can build. This freedom has led to a highly diverse pattern of land use. The city has been called the energy capital of the world due to its role as a major hub of oil and power industries. - ( Guardian )

-FUPPETS- was always informed that Houston, when seen from a bird's-eye view, looked like the splatter of an egg dropped from a great height. Houston is, as stated above, 60 miles wide, which is a very big city indeed. In many areas of the country, from the Midwest to the Northeast, driving 50 miles will take you through several cities/towns! In Houston, it may not get you to the airport.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TX (Part 13)

So, Super Bowl VIII in Houston TX has finished, with the Miami Dolphins defeating the Minnesota Vikings, and all that is left for the good Doctor is to collect on his bets and get out of town.

***

I stayed in Houston for two days after the game, but even with things calmed down I had no luck in finding the people who'd caused me all my trouble. Both Tom Keating and Al LoCasale were rumored to be in the vicinity, but - according to some of the New York sportswriters who'd seen them - neither one was eager to either see or be seen with me.
When I finally fled Houston it was a cold Tuesday afternoon with big lakes of standing water on the road to the airport. I almost missed my plane to Denver because of a hassle with Jimmy The Greek about who was going to drive us to the airport and another hassle with the hotel garage-man about who was going to pay for eight days of tending my bogus "Official Super Bowl Car" in the hotel garage. . . and I probably wouldn't have made it at all if I hadn't run into an NFL publicity man who gave me enough speed to jerk me awake and lash the little white Mercury Cougar out along the Dallas freeway [I-45] to the airport in time to abandon it in the "Departures/Taxis Only" area and hire a man for five dollars to rush my bags and sound equipment up to the Continental Airlines desk just in time to make the flight.
Twenty-four hours later I was back in Woody Creek and finally, by sheer accident, making contact with that twisted bastard Keating - who bent my balance a bit by calmly admitting his role in my Problem and explaining it with one of the highest left-handed compliments anybody ever aimed at me. . .
"I got nothing personal against Thompson," he told another NFL player who happened to be skiing in Aspen at the time: "But let's face it, we've got nothing to gain by talking to him. I've read all his stuff and I know how he is; he's a goddamn lunatic - and you've got to be careful with a bastard like that, because no matter how hard he tries, he just can't help but tell the truth."
When I heard that I just sort of slumped on my bar-stool and stared at myself in the mirror . . . wishing, on one level, that Keating's harsh judgement was right . . .but knowing, on another, that the treacherous realities of the worlds I especially work in forced me to abandon that purist stance a long time ago. If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

-FUPPETS- Already Misses Mai's Vietnamese Restaurant

In the middle of one of the busiest days in recent memory, -FUPPETS- received word yesterday that a favorite late-night eatery, Mai's Vietnamese Restaurant, was engulfed in flames. Sad to say, the story was not false. Here is a small article about the fire from the Houston Chronicle.
Mai's restaurant has always been a destination for people who wanted delicious food at affordable prices, and their Vietnamese egg rolls were the fucking greatest in town. The fact that Mai's opened until 3:00 AM was a decided plus, for the decadent late-night, post-party, post-club crowd.
-FUPPETS- was a regular there, on any cold and rainy day, for the life-enriching beef Pho' they served at Mai's. It truly made one feel amazing.
Here is a video detailing the fire. Hopefully the insurance comes through and Mai's can return better than ever. -FUPPETS- also hopes that the beautiful aquariums and fish inside survived the fire, and that the gorgeous front doors did not suffer too much damage.

-FUPPETS- Video Of The Day: Train Meets Bus

Here in Houston, there have been quite a number of collisions involving the light rail system. Sometimes the train hits a pedestrian, sometimes a cyclist, and sometimes a motor vehicle. Well, earlier this week, the Metro Light Rail hit a Metro bus as the bus was crossing Main Street in downtown Houston, Texas.
It turns out to be the bus driver's fault. not only did he casually run a red light as a train was oncoming, but the driver has been cited in the past several times for doing the same thing! What a moron. This time, the bus was taken out! Enjoy the footage below, which contains closed-circuit video from the outside and the inside of the train. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt.
-FUPPETS- cannot imagine the chaos that must have ensued inside that train after the collision!

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TX (Part 12)

After a lengthy dissertation on the subtleties of betting on football and accounting for the various injuries that players may or may not have, the Good Doctor wonders why he is cursed to have such pristine clairvoyance when it comes to the eventual Super Bowl VIII winner, in Houston TX.

It is hard to say, even now, exactly why I was so certain of an easy Dolphin victory. The only reason I didn't get extremely rich on the game was my inability to overcome the logistical problems of betting heavily, on credit, by means of frantic long-distance phone calls from a hotel room in Houston. None of the people I met in that violent, water-logged town were inclined to introduce me to a reliable book-maker - and the people I called on both coasts, several hours before the game on Sunday morning, seemed unnaturally nervous when I asked them to use their own credit to guarantee my bets with their local bookies.
Looking back on it now, after talking with some of these people and cursing them savagely, I see that the problem had something to do with my frenzied speech-pattern that morning. I was still in the grip of whatever fiery syndrome had caused me to deliver that sermon off the balcony a few hours earlier - and the hint of mad tremor in my voice, despite my attempts to disguise it, was apparently communicated very clearly to all those I spoke with on the long-distance telephone.
How long, O lord, how long? This is the second year in a row that I have gone to the Super Bowl and been absolutely certain - at least 48 hours before gametime - of the outcome. It is also the second year in a row that I have failed to capitalize, financially, on this certainty. Last year, betting mainly with wealthy cocaine addicts, I switched all my bets from Washington to Miami on Friday night - and in the resulting confusion my net winnings were almost entirely canceled by widespread rancor and personal bitterness.

This year, in order to side-step that problem, I waited until the last moment to make my bets - despite the fact that I knew the Vikings were doomed after watching them perform for the press at their star-crossed practice field on Monday afternoon before the game. It was clear, even then, that they were spooked and very uncertain about what they were getting into - but it was not until I drove about 20 miles around the beltway to the other side of town for a look at the Dolphins that I knew, for sure, how to bet.
There area lot of factors intrinsic to the nature of the Super Bowl that make it far more predictable that regular season games, or even playoffs - but they are not the kind of factors that can be sensed or understood at a distance of 2000 or even 20 miles, on the basis of any wisdom or information that filters out from the site through the rose-colored, booze-bent media-filter that passes for "world-wide overage" at these spectacles.
There is a progression of understanding vis-a-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance - physical, emotional, intellectual, and every other way . . . Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit mystique that blew the sacred institution of baseball off it's "national pastime" pedestal in less than 15 years.
There were other reasons for baseball's precipitous loss of popularity among everybody except old men and middle-aged sportswriters between 1959 and now - just as there will be a variety of reasons to explain the certain decline of pro football between now and 1984 - but if sporting historians ever look back on all this and try to explain it, there will be no avoiding the argument that pro football's meteoric success in the 1960's was directly attributable to it's early marriage with network TV and a huge, coast-to-coast audience of armchair fans who "grew up" - in terms of their personal relationships to The Game - with the idea that pro football was something that happened every Sunday on the tube. The notion of driving eight miles along a crowded freeway and then paying $3 to park the car in order to pay another $10 to watch the game from the vantage point of a damp redwood bench 55 rows above the 19-yard line in a crowd of noisy drunks was repugnant to them.
And they were absolutely right. After ten years of trying it both ways - and especially after watching this last wretched Super Bowl game from a choice seat in the "press section" very high above the 50-yard line - I hope to christ I never again succumb to whatever kind of weakness or madness it is that causes a person to endure the incoherent hell that comes with going out to a cold and rainy stadium for three hours on a Sunday afternoon and trying to get involved with whatever seems to be happening down there on that far-below field.
At the Super Bowl I had the benefit of my usual game-day aids: powerful binoculars, a tiny portable radio for the blizzard of audio-details that nobody ever thinks to mention on TV, and a seat on the good left arm of my friend, Mr. Natural . . . But even with all these aids and a seat on the 50-yard line, I would rather have stayed in my hotel room and watched the goddamn thing on TV; or maybe in some howling-drunk bar full of heavy bettors - the kind of people who like to bet on every play: pass or run, three to one against a first down, twenty to one on a turnover . . .
This is a very fast and active style of betting, because you have to make a decision about every 25 seconds. The only thing more intense is betting yes or no on the next shot in something like a pro basketball game between the Celtics and the Knicks, where you might get five or six shots every 24 seconds . . . or maybe only one, but in any case the betting is almost as exhausting as being out there on the floor.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TX (Part 11)

When we last visited with Gonzo-King himself, Hunter S. Thompson, he regaled -FUPPETS- with the truth about sportswriters covering Super Bowl VIII, held at the Rice University Stadium in Houston, Texas. Let's see what he is up to now, as the big game approaches.

The bus ride to the stadium for the game on Sunday took more than an hour, due to heavy traffic. I had made the same six-mile drive the night before in just under five minutes . . . but that was under very different circumstances; Rice Stadium is on South Main Street, along the same route that led from the Hyatt Regency to the Dolphin headquarters at the Marriott, and also to the Blue Fox.
There was not much to do on the bus except drink, smoke and maintain a keen ear on the babble of conversations behind me for any talk that might signal the presence of some late-blooming Vikings fan with money to waste. It is hard to stay calm and casual in a crowd of potential bettors when you feel absolutely certain of wining any bet you can make. At that point, anybody with even a hint of partisan enthusiasm in his voice becomes a possible mark - a doomed and ignorant creature to be lured, as carefully as possible, into some disastrous last-minute wager that could cost him every dollar he owns.
There is no room for mercy or the milk of human kindness in football vetting - at least not when you're prepared to get up on the edge with every dollar you own. One-on-one betting is a lot more interesting than dealing with bookies, because it involves it involves strong elements of personality and psychic leverage. Betting against the point spread is a relatively mechanical trip, but betting against another individual can be very complex, if you're serious about it - because you want to know, for starters, whether you're betting against a fool or a wizard, or maybe against somebody who's just playing the fool.
Making a large bet on a bus full of sportswriters on the way to the Super Bowl, for instance, can be a very dangerous thing: because you might be dealing with somebody who was in the same fraternity at Penn State with one of the team doctors, and who learned the night before - while drinking heavily with his old buddy - that the quarterback you're basing your bet on has four cracked ribs and can barely raise his passing arm to shoulder level.
Situations like these are not common. Unreported injuries can lead to heavy fines against any team that fails to report one - especially in a Super Bowl - but what is a $10,000 fine, compared to the amount of money that kind of crucial knowledge is worth against a big-time bookie?
The other side of that coin is a situation where a shrewd coach turns the League's "report all injuries" rule into a psychological advantage for his own team - and coincidentally for any bettor who knows what's happening - by scrupulously reporting an injury to a star player just before a big game, then calling a press-conference to explain that the just-reported injury is of such a nature - a pulled muscle, for instance - that it might or might not heal entirely by game time.
This was what happened in Houston with the Dolphin's Paul Warfield, widely regarded as "the most dangerous pass receiver in pro football." Warfield is a game-breaker, a man who commands double-coverage at all times because of his antelope running style, twin magnets for hands, and a weird kind of adrenaline instinct that feeds on tension and high pressure. There is no more beautiful sight in football that watching Paul Warfield float out of the backfield in a sort of angle-streak pattern right into the heart of a "perfect" zone defense and take a softly thrown pass on his hip, without even seeming to notice the arrival of the ball, and then float another 60 yards into the end zone, with none of the frustrated defensive backs ever touching him.
There is an eerie kind of certainty about Warfield's style that is far more demoralizing than just another six points on the scoreboard. About half the time he looks bored and lazy - but even the best pass defenders in the league know, in some nervous corner of their hearts, that when the deal goes down Warfield is capable of streaking right past them like they didn't exist . . .
Unless he's hurt; playing with some kind of injury that might or might not be serious enough to either slow him down or gimp the fiendish concentration that makes him so dangerous . . . and this was the possibility that Dolphin coach Don Shula raised on Wednesday when he announced hat Warfield had pulled a leg muscle in practice that afternoon and might not play on Sunday.
This news caused instant action in gambling circles. Even big-time bookies, whose underground information on these things is usually as good as Pete Rozelle's, took Shula's announcement seriously enough to cut the spread down from seven to six - a decision worth many millions of betting dollars if the game turned out to be close.
Even the rumor of an injury to Warfield was worth one point (and even two, with some bookies I was never able to locate) . . . and if Shula had announced on Saturday that Paul was definitely not going to play, the spread would probably have dropped to four, or even three . . . Because the guaranteed absence of Warfield would have taken a great psychological load off the minds of Minnesota's defensive backs.
Without the ever-present likelihood of a game-breaking "bomb" at any moment, they could focus down much tighter on stopping Miami's brutal running game - which eventually destroyed them, just as it had destroyed Oakland's nut-cutting defense two weeks earlier, and one of the main reasons why the Vikings failed to stop the Dolphins on the ground was the constant presence of Paul Warfield in his customary wide-receiver's spot.
He played almost the whole game, never showing any sign of injury; and although he caught only one pass, he neutralized two Minnesota defensive backs on every play . . . and two extra tacklers on the line of scrimmage might have made a hell of a difference in that embarrassingly decisive first quarter when Miami twice drove what might as well have been the whole length of the field to score 14 quick points and crack the Vikings' confidence just as harshly as they had cracked the Redskins out in Los Angeles a year earlier.

October Means THE ORIGINAL GREEK FESTIVAL!

Opa! Hell yes! The weather is shifting and the coolness is settling in and September is winding to a close and that can only mean one thing, Houston's ORIGINAL GREEK FESTIVAL is near!!!!!!
This event, the 43rd annual Greek Festival, is always one of the highlights of the year in Houston, as the local Greek community opens it's cathedral doors to everyone who wishes to have a great time, eat amazingly fresh and delicious home-made food, drink sweet Greek wine, shop for imported Greek goods ranging from jewelry to religious icons to clothing to delicacies from all over the Mediterranean.
-FUPPETS- favorite Souvlaki, grilled over open flames, releases the most delicious aroma into the air.

Not only are there amazing delights for the taste buds, but Greek music is playing throughout, Greek dances are performed hourly, by both adults and children in traditional costumes, and the gorgeous, gorgeous, GORGEOUS GREEK WOMEN are a feast for the eyes!!!!!!!!!!!! Heartbreakingly beautiful Greek women abound at this festival. You will not be disappointed. the people watching is always great here.
Everyone is welcome, and it is always a great mix of people's from the entire world. Houston is an extremely cosmopolitan city and it is evident at the Greek festival that people the world over love them some Greek delights!
Due to the economic times tickets have gone up in price, but $5 is not much to pay for a day of fun. Remember to save room for the pastries, and get them early as they run out by noon Sunday! -FUPPETS- cannot wait! Also, if you love coffee, the Greek Coffee they sell is gonna blow your freakin' mind!

N.P.R. Spotlights HOUSTON

National spotlights do not often do the city of Houston justice, but National Public Radio has focused a week of coverage, part of The Urban Frontier radio series, by sending Steve Innskeep to cover the growth of Houston as it relates to urban growth everywhere, airing all five segments last week from Monday to Friday. Houston is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, as well as one of the least hard-hit by the current recession. It continues to provide an excellent quality of life at a very affordable price, which attracts new people constantly. Of course, the do point out the sprawl and the massive size of it all, but it is a very good series.

Click on the links below to read the articles, and to hear the full broadcast stories.

Houston: Texas-sized Sprawl, No End In Sight

Greener Houston Grapples with Diversity & Sprawl

Fighting Gentrification With Money In Houston

Novelist Visualizes Houston's Past, And It's Future

Mayor's Dilemma: Can Houston Grow & Be Green?

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TX (Part 8)

Ahhh, the Good Doctor. Always ready to increase the levels of insanity and chaos to 11. The last time we caught up with HST, he was in Houston to cover the Super Bowl and was giving a local Houston psychic reader, Mother Roberts, the "bizness." She was not amused.

It was not until Monday afternoon that I actually spoke with Mother Roberts on the telephone, but the idea of going over to Galveston and dealing with the whole Super Scene story from some rotten motel on the edge of the seawall had been wandering around in my head almost from the first hour after I checked into my coveted press-room at The Hyatt Regency.
And in dull retrospect now, I wish I had done that. Almost anything would have been better than that useless week I spent in Houston waiting for the Big Game. The only place in town where I felt at home was a sort of sporadically violent strip joint called the Blue Fox, far out in the country on South Main ( Houston in those days did not extend to the far reaches of Harris county as it does now - -FUPPETS- ) Nobody I talked to in Houston had ever heard of it and the only two sportswriters who went out there with me got involved in a wild riot that ended up with all of us getting maced by undercover vice-squad cops who just happened to be in the middle of the action when it erupted.
Ah . . . but that is another story, and we don't have time for it here. Maybe next time. There are two untold sagas that will not fit into this story: One has to do with Big Al's Cactus Room in Oakland, and the other concerns the Blue Fox in Houston.
There is also -- at least in the minds of at least two dozen gullible sportswriters at the Super Bowl -- The ugly story of how I spent three or four days prior to Super Week shooting smack in a $7 a night motel room on the seawall in Galveston.
I remember telling that story one night in the press lounge at the Hyatt Regency, just babbling it off the top of my head out of sheer boredom . . . Then I forgot about it completely until one of the local sportswriters approached me a day or so later and said: "Say man, I hear you spent some time in Galveston last week."
"Galveston?"
"Yeah," he said. "I hear you locked yourself in a motel over there and shot heroin for three days."
I looked around to see who was listening, then grinned kind of stupidly and said, "Shucks, there wasn't much else to do, you know -- so why not get loaded in Galveston?"
He shrugged uncontrollably and looked down at his Old Crow and water. I glanced at my watch and turned to leave. "Time to hit it," I said with a smile. "See you later, when I'm feeling back on my rails."
He nodded glumly as I moved away in the crowd . . . and although I saw him three or four times a day for the rest of that week, he never spoke to me again.
Most sportswriters are so blank on the subject of drugs that you can only talk to them about it at your own risk -- which is easy enough, for me, because I get a boot out of seeing their eyes bulge: but it can be disastrous to a professional football player who makes the casual mistake of assuming that a sportswriter knows what he is talking about when he uses a word like "crank." Any professional athlete who talks to a sportswriter about "drugs" -- even with the best and most constructive intentions -- is taking a very heavy risk. There is a definite element of hysteria about drugs of any kind in pro football today, and a casual remark -- even a meaningless remark -- across the table in a friendly hometown bar can lead, very quickly, to a seat in the witness chair in front of a congressional committee.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TEXAS (Part 7)

*The last time we visited with the good Doctor Thompson, he was collecting bets before the Super Bowl had even finished.

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Ah yes. Mother Roberts . . . I found her card on the bus and jammed it into one of my pockets, thinking that maybe I would give her a call on Monday and make an appointment. I had a lot of heavy questions to lay on her like "Why am I here, Mother Roberts? What does it all mean? Have I finally turned Pro? Can this really be the end? Down and out in Houston with ---
"No, I was just kidding, Mother Roberts, just putting you on -- just working a bit of the test on you, right? Yes, because what I was really leading up to is this extremely central question . . . No, I'm not shy; it's just that I come from way up north where people's lips are frozen about ten months every year, so we don';t get used to talking until very late in life . . . what? Old? Well, I think you just put your finger or your wand or whatever, right smack on the head of the nail, Mother Roberts, because the godawful truth of the whole matter is that I've been feeling extremely old this past week, and . . . What? Wait a minute now, goddamnit, I'm still getting up to the main question, which is . . What? No, I never curse, Mother Roberts; that was a cry of anguish, a silent scream from the soul, because I feel in serious trouble down here in this goddamn town, and . . . Yes, I am a white person, Mother Roberts, and we both know there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Are you prejudiced?

. . .No, let's not get into that. Just let me ask this question and if you can give me a straight and reasonable answer I promise I won't come out to your place. . . because what I want you to tell me, Mother Roberts - and I mean this very seriously - is why I have been in Houston for eight days without anybody offering me some cocaine? . . . Yes, cocaine, that's what I said, and just between you and me I'm damn serious about wanting some . . . What? Drugs? Of course I'm talking about drugs! Your ad said you could answer my questions and lift me out of sorrow and darkness . . . Okay, okay, I'm listening . . . Yeah, yeah . . . But let me tell you something, Mother Roberts: My name is Al Davis and I'm the Editor of Reader's Digest . . . Right, and I can have you busted right now for false advertising . . . Yeah well I think I might pick up some of my people and come out to see you later on today; we want some explanations for this kind of anti-christ bullshit. This country's in enough trouble, goddamnit, without people like you running around selling drugs like cocaine to people in serious trouble . . . ."

Mother Roberts hung up on me at that point. Christ only knows what she thought was about to come down on her when dusk fell on Houston . . . Here was the Editor of the Reader's Digest coming out to her house with a goon squad, and all of them apparently stone mad for cocaine and vengeance . . . a terrible situation.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TEXAS (Part 6)

The last time we visited with the good Doctor, he had abruptly finished his balcony sermon, and was holed up inside his Houston hotel room, the morning of Super Bowl VIII.

It had been a dull week, even by sportswriter's standards, and now the day of the Big game was finally on us. Just one more free breakfast, one more ride, and by nightfall the thing would be over.
The first media bus was scheduled to leave the hotel bat 10:30, four hours before kick-off, so I figured that gave me some time to relax and act human. I filled the bathtub with hot water, plugged the tape recorder with both speakers into a socket right next to the tub, and spent the next two hours in a steam stupor, listening to Rosalie Sorrels and Doug Sahm, chewing idly on a small slice of Mr. Natural, and reading the cocaine papers of Sigmund Freud.
Around noon I went downstairs to the Imperial Ballroom to read the morning papers over the limp dregs of NFL's free breakfast, then I stopped at the free bar for a few bloody marys before wandering outside to catch the last bus for the stadium - The CBS special - complete with more bloody marys, screwdrivers and a roving wagon-meister who seemed to have everything under control.
On the bus to the stadium I made a few more bets on Miami. At that point I was picking up everything I could get, regardless of the points. It had been a long and jangled night, but the two things that needed to be done before game-time - my sermon and my lead - were already done, and the rest of the day looked easy: Just try to keep out of trouble and stay straight enough to collect on all my bets.
The consensus among the 1600 or so sportswriters in town favored Miami by almost two to one . . . but there are only a handful of sportswriters in this country with enough sense to pour piss out of their own boots, and by Saturday night there was an obvious drift among the few "smart" ones to Minnesota, with a seven point cushion. Paul Zimmerman of the New York Post, author of A Thinking man's Guide to Pro Football and the sportswriting fraternity's scaled-down answer to the Washington Post's political guru David Broeder, had organized his traditional pressroom betting pool - where any sportswriter who felt up to it could put a dollar in the pot and predict the final score (in writing, on the pressroom bulletin board, for all the world to see) . . . and whoever came closest would pick up a thousand or so dollars.
Or at least that was the theory. But in reality there were only about 400 writers wiling to risk a public prediction on the outcome of a game that - even to an amateur like me - was so obvious that I took every bet I could get against the Vikings, regardless of the spread. As late as 10:30 on Sunday morning I was calling bookies on both coasts, doubling and tripling my bets with every point I could get from five to seven . . . and by 2:35 on Sunday afternoon, five minutes after the kick-off, I knew I was home free.
Moments later, when the Dolphins drove the length of the field for another touchdown, I began collecting money. The final outcome was painfully clear less than halfway through the first quarter - and shortly after that, Sport Magazine editor Dick Shapp reached over my shoulder in the press section and dropped two bills - a five and a twenty - in my lap.
I smiled back at him, "Jesus," I said, "Are you giving up already? This game is far from over, my man. Your people are only 21 points down, and we still have a whole half to go."
He shook his head sadly.
"You're not counting on a second-half rally?" I asked, pocketing his money.
He stared at me, saying nothing . . . then he rolled his eyes up toward the soupy mist above the stadium where the Goodyear Blimp was hovering, almost invisible in the fog.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TEXAS (Part 5)

* When last we visited with the good Doctor, he had begun ranting and raving about "discipline" from the 20th floor balcony of his Houston Hyatt Regency hotel.

Nobody down in the lobby seemed to catch that one, although I sensed the first stirrings of action on the balconies just below me. It was almost time for the Free Breakfast in the Imperial Ballroom downstairs, and some of the early-rising sportswriters seemed to be up and about. Somewhere behind me a phone was ringing, but I paid no attention.It was time, I felt, to bring it all together... my voice was giving out, but despite the occasional dead spots and bursts of high-pitched wavering, I grasped the railing of the balcony and got braced for some flat-out raving:
"Revelations, Twenty-fifteen!" I screamed. "Say Hallelujah! Yes! Say Hallelujah!"
People were definitely responding now. I could hear their voices, full of excitement - but the acoustics of the place made it impossible to get a good fix on the cries that were bounding back and forth across the lobby. Were they saying "Hallelujah"?
"Four more years!" I shouted. "My friend General Haig has told us that the Forces of Darkness are now in control of the Nation - and they will rule for four more years!" I paused to sip my drink, then I hit it again: "And Al Davis has told us that whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire!"
I reached around behind me with my free hand, slapping at a spot between my shoulder blades to slow the thing down.
"How many of you will be cast into a lake of fire in the next four years? How many will survive? I have spoken with general Haig, and - "
At this point I was seized by both arms and jerked backwards, spilling my drink and interrupting the climax of my sermon. "You crazy bastard!" a voice screamed. "Look what you've done! The manager just called. Get back in the room and lock the fucking door! He's going to bust us!"
It was the TV man from Pittsburgh, trying to drag me back from my pulpit. I slipped out of his grasp and returned to the balcony. "This is Super Sunday!" I screamed. "I want everyone of you worthless bastards down in the lobby in ten minutes so we can praise God and sing the national anthem!"
At this point I noticed the TV man sprinting down the hall towards the elevators, and the sight of him running caused something to snap in my brain. "There he goes!" I shouted. "He's headed for the lobby! Watch out! It's Al Davis. He has a knife!"
I could see people moving on all the balconies now, and also down in the lobby. Then, just before I ducked back in my room, I saw one of the glass-walled elevators starting down, with a single figure inside it. . . he was the most visible man in the building; a trapped and crazy animal descending slowly - in full view of everybody from the busboys in the ground-floor coffee shop to Jimmy the Greek on the balcony above me - to certain captivity by that ugly crowd at the bottom.
I watched for a moment, then hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on my doorknob and double-locked the door. That elevator, I knew, would be empty when it got to the lobby. There were at least five floors, on the way down, where he could jump out and bang on a friendly door for safe refuge . . . and the crowd in the lobby had not seen him clearly enough, through the tinted-glass wall of the elevator, to recognize him later on.
And there was not much time for vengeance, anyway, on the odd chance that anyone cared.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TEXAS (Part 4)

* When last we left the good Doctor, someone was beating at his hotel door, the night/morning before Super Bowl VIII in Houston, Texas.

...It was a TV reporter from Pittsburgh, raving drunk and demanding to take a shower. I jerked him into the room. "Nevermind the goddamn shower," I said. "Do you realize what I have on my spine?" He stared at me, unable to speak. "A giant leech," I said. "It's been there for eight days, getting fatter and fatter with blood."
He nodded slowly as I led him over to the phone. "I hate leeches," he muttered.
'That's the least of our problems," I said. "Room service won't send any beer until noon, and all the bars are closed. . . I have this Wild Turkey, but I think it's too heavy for the situation we're in."
"You're right," he said. "I got work to do. The goddamn game's about to start. I need a shower."
"Me too," I said. "But I have some work to do first, so you'll have to make the call."
"Call?" He slumped into a chair in front of the window, staring down at the thick grey mist that had hung on the town for eight days - except now, as Super Sunday dawned, it was thicker and wetter than ever.
I gave him the phone: "Call the manager," I said. "Tell him you're Howard Cossell and you're visiting up here with a minister in 2003; we're having a private prayer breakfast and we need two fifths of his best red wine, with a box of saltine crackers."
He nodded unhappily. "Hell, I came here for a shower. Who needs the wine?"
"It's important," I said. "You make the call while I go outside and get started."
He shrugged and dialed "0" while I hurried out to the balcony, clearing my throat for an opening run at James 2:19:
"Beware!" I shouted, "for the Devils also believe and tremble!"
I waited for a moment, but there was no reply from the lobby, 20 floors down - so I tried Ephesians 6:12, which seemed more appropriate:
"For we wrestle not," I screamed, "against flesh and blood - but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world - and, yes - against spiritual wickedness in high places!"
Still there was no response except the booming echoes of my own voice . . . but the thing on my spine was moving with renewed vigor now, and I sensed there was not much time. All movement in the lobby had ceased. They were all standing still down there - maybe 20 or 30 people . . . but were they listening? Could they hear?
I couldn't be sure. The acoustics of these massive lobbies are not predictable. I knew, for instance, that a person sitting in a room on the 11th floor, with the door open, could hear - with unnerving clarity - the sound of a cocktail glass shattering on the floor of the lobby. It was also true that almost every word of Gregg Allman's "Multi-Colored Lady" played a top volume on a dual-speaker Sony TC-126 in an open-door room on the 20th floor could be heard in the NFL press room on the hotel mezzanine . . . but it was hard to be sure of the timbre and carrying power of my own voice in this cavern; it sounded, to me, like the deep screaming of a bull elk in the rut . . . but there was no way to know, for sure, if I was really getting through.
"Discipline!" I bellowed. "Remember Vince Lombardi!" I paused to let that one sink in - waiting for applause, but none came. "Remember George Metesky!^" I shouted. "He had discipline!"

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^ - George P. Metesky (November 2, 1903 – May 23, 1994), better known as the Mad Bomber, terrorized New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he planted in theaters, terminals, libraries and offices. Bombs were left in phone booths, storage lockers and restrooms in public buildings, including Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Public Library, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the RCA Building, as well as in the New York City Subway. Perhaps most notably, Metesky bombed movie theaters, where he cut into seat upholstery and slipped his explosive devices inside.
Angry and resentful about events surrounding a workplace injury suffered years earlier, Metesky planted at least 33 bombs, of which 22 exploded, injuring 15 people. He was apprehended based on an early use of offender profiling and clues given in letters he wrote to a newspaper. He was found legally insane and committed to a state mental hospital. (wikipedia)

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TEXAS (Part 3)

(Continuing saga of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in Houston, Texas, reporting on the Miami Dolphins and the Minnessota Vikings duking it out in Super Bowl VIII (1974). Read Part 1 here. Read Part 2 here. Excerpted from The Great Shark Hunt - Ballantine Books)

Back in the room I filled a glass full of ice and Wild Turkey, then began flipping through the pages of "A Demon's Nightmare" for some kind of spiritual springboard to get the sermon moving. I had already decided - about midway in the ice-run - that I had adequate time to address the sleeping crowd and also crank out a lead before that goddamn blood-sucking slug reached the base of my brain - or even worse, if a sharp dose of Wild Turkey happened to slow the thing down long enough to rob me of my final excuse for missing the game entirely, like last year . . .
What? Did my tongue slip there? My fingers? Or did I just get a fine professional hint from my old buddy, Mr. Natural?
Indeed. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. John Mitchell said that - shortly before he quit his job and left Washington at 90 miles an hour in a chauffeur-driven limousine.
I have never felt close to John Mitchell, but on that rotten morning in Houston I came as close as I ever will: because he was, after all, a pro . . . and so, alas, was I. Or at least I had a fistful of press badges that said I was.
And it was this bedrock sense of professionalism, I think, that quickly solved my problem . . . which, until that moment when I recalled the foul spectre of Mitchell, had seemed to require a frantic decision between either delivering my sermon or writing my lead, in the space of an impossibly short time.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Who said that?
I suspect it was somebody from the Columbia Journalism Review, but I have no proof . . . and it makes no difference anyway. There is a bond, among pros, that needs no definition. Or at least it didn't on that Sunday morning in Houston, for reasons that require no further discussion at this point in time . . . because it suddenly occurred to me that I had already written the lead for this year's Super Bowl game; I wrote it last year in Los Angeles, and a quick rip through my fat manila folder of clips labeled "Football '73" turned it up as if by magic.
I jerked it out of the file, and retyped it on a fresh page slugged: "Super Bowl/Houston '74." The only change necessary was the substitution of "Minnesota Vikings" for "Washington Redskins." Except for that, the lead seemed just as adequate for the game that would begin in about six hours as it was for the one that I missed in Los Angeles in January of '73.
"The precision-jackhammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off of the Minnesota Vikings today by stomping and hammering with one precise jack-thrust after another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint-precision passes into the flat and numerous hammer-jack stops around both ends . . . "

The jangling of the telephone caused me to interrupt my work. I jerked it off the hook, saying nothing to whoever was on the other end, and began flashing the hotel operator. When she finally cut in I spoke very calmly. "Look," I said. "I'm a very friendly person and a minister of the gospel, to boot - but I thought I left instructions down there to put no calls - NO CALLS. GODDAMNIT! - through to this room, and especially not now in the middle of this orgy . . . I've been here eight days and nobody's called me yet. Why in the hell would they start now? . . . What? Well, I simply can't accept that kind of flimsy reasoning, operator. Do you believe in Hell? Are you ready to speak with Saint Peter? . . . Wait a minute now, calm down . . . I want to be sure you understand one thing before I get back to my business; I have some people here who need help . . . But I want you to know God is Holy! He will not allow sin in his presence! The Bible says" 'There is none righteous. No, not one . . . for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.' That's from the book of Romans, young lady . . . "
The silence at the other end of the line was beginning to make me nervous. But I could feel the sap rising, so I decided to continue my sermon from the balcony . . . and suddenly I realized that somebody was beating on my door. Jesus god, I thought, it's the manager; they've come for me at last.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TEXAS (PART 2)

(Continuing saga of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in Houston, Texas, reporting on the Miami Dolphins and the Minnessota Vikings duking it out in Super Bowl VIII. Read Part 1 here. Excerpted from The Great Shark Hunt - Ballantine Books )

I howled at the top of my lungs for almost 30 minutes, raving and screeching about all those who would soon be cast into the lake of fire, for a variety of low crimes, misdemeanors, and general ugliness that amounted to a sweeping indictment of almost everybody in the hotel at that hour.
Most of them were asleep when I began speaking, but as a Doctor of Divinity and an ordained minister in the Church of the New Truth, I knew in my heart that I was merely a vessel - a tool as it were - of some higher and more powerful voice.
For eight long and degrading days I had skulked around Houston with all the other professionals, doing our jobs - which was actually to do nothing at all except drink all the free booze we could pour into our bodies, courtesy of the National Football League, and listen to an endless barrage of some of the lamest and silliest swill ever uttered by man or beast . . . and finally, on Sunday morning about six hours before the opening kickoff, I was racked to the point of hysteria by a hellish interior conflict.I was sitting by myself in the room, watching the wind and the weather clock on the TV set, when I felt a sudden and extremely powerful movement at the base of my spine. Mother of Sweating Jesus! I thought. What is it - a leech? Are there leeches in this goddamn hotel, along with everything else? I jumped off the bed and began clawing at the small of my back with both hands. The thing felt huge, maybe eight or nine pounds, moving slowly up my spine to the base of my neck.
I'd been wondering all week, why I was feeling so low and out of sorts . . . but it never occurred to me that a giant leech had been sucking blood out of the base of my spine all that time: and now the goddamn thing was moving up towards the base of my brain, going straight for the medulla . . . and as a professional sportswriter I knew that if the bugger ever reached my medulla I was done for.
It was at this point that serious conflict set in, because I realized - given the nature of what was coming up my spine and the drastic effect I knew it would have, very soon, on my sense of journalistic responsibility - that I would have to do two things immediately: First, deliver the sermon that had been brewing in my brain all week long, and then rush back into the room to write my lead for the Super Bowl story . . .
Or maybe write my lead first, and then deliver the sermon. In any case, there was no time to lose. The thing was about a third of the way up my spine now, and still moving at good speed. I jerked on a pair of L.L.Bean stalking shorts and ran out on the balcony to a nearby ice machine.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON & HOUSTON, TEXAS (PART 1)

The date was January, 1974. Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas was the site chosen for Super Bowl VIII, a contest between the NFC champ Minnesota Vikings and the AFC champ Miami Dolphins, fresh off of a perfect season the year before. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was in town to cover the game. (Excerpted from The Great Shark Hunt: Gonzo Papers Vol. I: Strange Tales From a Strange Time)


FEAR & LOATHING AT THE SUPER BOWL

"...and whosoever was not found written into the book of life was cast into the lake of fire..." - Revelations 20:15

This was the theme of the sermon I delivered off the 20th floor balcony of the Hyatt Regency in Houston the morning of Super Bowl VIII. It was just before dawn, as I recall, when the urge to speak came on me. Earlier that day I had found - on the tile floor of the Men's Room on the hotel mezzanine - a religious comic book titled "A Demon's Nightmare," and it was from the text of this sleazy tract that I chose the words of my sermon.
The Houston Hyatt Regency - like others designed by architect John Portman in Atlanta and San Francisco - is a stack of 1000 rooms, built around a vast lobby at least 30 stories high, with a revolving "spindletop" bar on the roof. The whole center of the building is a tower of acoustical space. You can walk out of any room and look over the indoor balcony (20 floors down in my case) at the palm-shrouded, wood and Naugahyde maze of the bar/lounge on the lobby floor.
Closing time in Houston is 2:00 AM. There are after-hours bars, but the Hyatt Regency is not one of them. So - when I was seized by the urge to deliver my sermon at dawn - there were only about 20 ant-sized people moving around in the lobby far below.
Earlier, before the bar closed, the whole ground floor had been jammed with drunken sportswriters, hard-eyed hookers, wandering geeks and hustlers (of almost every persuasion), and a legion of big and small gamblers from all over the country who roamed through the drunken, randy crowd - as casually as possible - with an eye to picking up a last minute sucker bet from some poor bastard half-mad on booze and willing to put some money, preferably four or five big ones, on "his boys."
The spread, in Houston, was Miami by six, but by midnight on Saturday almost every one of the two-thousand or so drunks in the lobby of the regency - official headquarters and media vortex for this eighth annual Super Bowl - was absolutely sure about what was going to happen when the deal went down on Sunday, about two miles east of the hotel on the fog-soaked artificial turf of Rice University Stadium.

Ah ... but wait! Why are we talking about gamblers here? Or thousands of hookers and drunken sportswriters jammed together in a seething mob in the lobby of a Houston hotel?
And what kind of sick and twisted impulse would cause a professional sportswriter to deliver a sermon from the Book of Revelations off his hotel balcony on the dawn of Super Sunday?
I had not planned a sermon for that morning. i had not even planned to be in Houston for that matter ... But now, looking back on that outburst, I see a certain inevitability about it. Probably it was a crazed and futile effort to somehow explain the extremely twisted nature of my relationship with God, Nixon, and the National Football League: The three had long become inseparable in my mind, a sort of unholy trinity that had caused me more trouble and personal anguish in the past few months than Ron Ziegler, Hubert Humphrey and Peter Sheridan all together had caused me in a year on the campaign trail.
Or perhaps it had something to do with my admittedly deep-seated need to have public revenge on Al Davis, general manager of the Oakland Raiders ... Or maybe an overweening desire to confess that I had been wrong, from the start, to have ever agreed with Richard Nixon about anything, and especially pro football.
In any case, it was apparently something I'd been cranking myself up to deliver for quite a while ... and, for reasons I still can't be sure of, the eruption finally occurred on the dawn of Super Sunday.

(more Hunter S. Thompson & Houston, Texas to come.)

-FUPPETS- Documentary Of The Day

The fine folks at VBS TV bring you quality video entertainment spanning the full spectrum of music as well as tons of other great shit.
-FUPPETS- presents, as the Documentary Of The Day, SCREWED IN HOUSTON, a documentary exploring the chopped n' screwed hip hop scene in Houston TX, which was birthed by local legend DJ Screw.
Get some drank, lean a bit, light up a fat one, and enjoy this southern hilarity.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5

HAKEEM OLAJUWON - Hall of Fame Inductee

Today, the greatest sports hero the city of Houston has ever had, Hakeem "The DREAM" Olajuwon, is to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Pro Basketball Hall Of Fame. (be forewarned, the basketball hall of fame website sucks ass)

Hakeem began his basketball career at the University of Houston, as part of Phi Slamma Jamma, and leading U of H to three consecutive Final Four appearances. "DREAM" brought the first major championship to Houston since the days of the American Football League in the 50's/60's. He then proceeded to do it again the year after, giving us memories to carry for our entire lives. After the first championship, driving home after the game, seeing thousands upon thousands of people standing on the streets cheering and cars honking and crowds gathered outside of the Summit, the feeling was amazing. Getting to see it again the year after was just icing on the cake.



Fran Blinebury, of the Houston Chronicle, writes about Olajuwon's journey from Lagos in Nigeria to Houston, Texas.


Hakeem Olajuwon is the greatest center to play in the N.B.A. these last 25 years. The year the Rockets won their first championship Hakeem Olajuwon was awarded the League's Most Valuable Player award, the League's Defensive Player of The Year award, and the N.B.A. Finals' Most Valuable Player award, the ONLY MAN IN N.B.A. HISTORY TO DO SO. "Dream" retired with the record for most blocked shots, and 7th in all-time steals, as well as leading the Houston Rockets in nearly every offensive and defensive stat category.


Tonight he joins the man that beat him in the NCAA Championship, and whom he beat in the NBA Championship, Patrick Ewing, as inductees into the Pro Basketball Hall Of Fame. They came into the N.B.A. together and they enter the Hall of Fame together. It is only fitting.

Here are some videos for your pleasure, hand-chosen by -FUPPETS-.

The first is Hakeem Olajuwon's Top 10 Plays as chosen by ESPN.

Perhaps my fondest memory of "Dream" was when the Rockets were fighting the San Antonio Spurs in the playoffs. Spurs center David Robinson was voted the NBA Most valuable Player, a year after Olajuwon had earned that award. Olajuwon, and many others, felt that the 1995 MVP trophy should have gone to him again. The MVP trophy was awarded to Robinson before the start of their series together. According to his teammates, Hakeem and them sat in their locker room, watching the NBA commissioner hand Robinson the award, and Hakeem said "That man has my trophy." For a soft-spoken man, this was as much as he was going to say about it. He would proceed to put on one of the greatest single-player efforts ever witnessed in the NBA playoffs, leading his Rockets to victory in the series against David Robinson, and effectively emphasizing who truly deserved to be named League MVP that year. Here is a short summary of that ass-kicking.

The Houston Rockets celebrated Hakeem Olajuwon's entry into the Hall of fame at Toyota Center, in front of the fans. Houston loves us some "Dream."

Congratulations Hakeem Olajuwon. You deserve all of it and more. Thank you for the memories.