This Is Texas
Why the capital should rightfully be Houston, not Austin.
Sondra Gail says: I Love Houston. I’m From Houston. And I have NO desire to bring That level of politics to my lovely city. We’ve got enough BS, thank you. (February 1st, 2013 at 2:13pm)
(Page 2 of 2)
Of course, most of these facts about the city are Houston’s official party line, the stuff you hear from chamber of commerce blowhards. Here’s the thing: Houston is all of that highfalutin stuff and also weirder than Austin. Where else can you light a candle to a life-size skeletal Santa Muerte in the back room of a Sharpstown strip mall yerbería by morning and watch a French Creole–speaking black man in cowboy attire dance an elaborate waltz to zydeco accordion by night? Where else can you devour pound after pound of Vietnamese crawfish and drink canned Budweiser at one of America’s largest Southeast Asian shopping malls, surrounded by arguing old men betting on checker games, and then adjourn to the bay side for fresh oysters under laughing gulls?
The traditional, the modern, the bizarre, and their collisions, that’s what makes Houston weird, much weirder than our current capital’s insular (and sneering) celebration of all things hipsterish. In fact, Austin’s parochial mind-set is what makes its unseating as our capital not just logical but necessary. Capital cities should be something of a synthesis of the places they represent, but Austin is to Texas what Saint Petersburg was to Imperial Russia: a deplorable conduit for foreign ideas and fashions. The city is a rejection of Texas, an adopter of fashions that should be banished from whence they came, starting with Formula 1 racing (Italy) and whole-wheat tortillas (California).
More so than ever, Austin lacks gravitas. A city can get away with such a deficiency so long as it is creating great, transcendent art, but is Austin doing that? It calls itself the Live Music Capital of the World, and yet one wonders if the entire Austin music movement of the past forty-plus years has sold as many albums as Destiny’s Child and Beyoncé—to name but one Houston hit-making machine. And I won’t even talk about how the city has tried to steal Houston’s folk-country legacy of Crowell, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Steve Earle. Then there’s H-Town’s hip-hop scene, from the Geto Boys and UGK to Slim Thug and Chamillionaire, which is rivaled in the South only by Atlanta’s.
My proposal has an upside for Austinites as well. By renouncing their capital status, they’d rid the city of tens of thousands of Republican politicians, appointees, lobbyists, and corporate attorneys at one fell swoop. (Think of it, my freaky Hill Country brethren, you would finally be shut of Rick Perry!) The traffic, now officially the worst in the state, would improve. And all those fat cats leaving town would sap the demand for McMansions and Douchebox condos, so the ongoing ravagement of Austin’s majestic hillsides and lakefronts would abate. Finally, hipsters, who revel in nothing more than being something before it was cool and then discarding it, could rejoice in their identity as “the historic capital of Texas.”
As for Houston, I can’t help but think our elected leaders would benefit from living in a city with high culture. Maybe hearing an aria or two would elevate the soul of a flinty-eyed Midland senator. There’s the economy too: maybe a trip through the boutiques of Harwin Drive—where trucks disgorge the cargoes of Chinese consumer goods by the containership-load—would educate our leaders on the realities of the trade imbalance and get them to do something about creating manufacturing jobs in Texas.
There is, of course, the question of logistics. What becomes of the old Capitol? And where does Houston lodge the Lege? Easy. Slap a statue of Willie Nelson in the Goddess of Liberty’s place atop the granite dome and repurpose it as the Texas Pantheon. Fill it with statues, plaques, and exhibits dedicated to all those exalted icons who were truly Texas cool, and presto: a world-class tourist attraction. As for Houston, well, let’s not forget that it has long been home to a certain Eighth Wonder of the World, now just sitting there running to ruin. The Astrodome’s merits as a seat of government are limitless. It has rail service and ample parking and seating. It has skyboxes in which lobbyists, high above the scrum, could go about their deals. The old “exploding” scoreboard could be reactivated, and we could make state politics a spectator sport. What citizen wouldn’t be more civic-minded if he could kick back in a box seat and enjoy a few cups of the Coldest Foam in the Dome while Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte debated at midfield? Whenever a legislator started getting a little too grandiose up on the dais, an appointed sinecure (Nolan Ryan?) could power up that bawling, smoking-nosed bull that once thrilled baseball fans. C-SPAN ratings would be off the charts.
Texas is now an urban state, and Houston, the mestizo megalopolis where the Dirty South meets Aztlán, is every Texas city. It has an Austin inside it, in the Heights and parts of Montrose. It has barrios to rival those of El Paso and San Antonio, in the East End and on the Northside. Louisiana lagniappe is scattered about in all the Cajun, Creole, and post-Katrina New Orleans eateries and in the zydeco that is a living, vital part of black Houston culture. There’s a Dallas in and around the Galleria and Highland Village, and once a year, the whole city pretends to be Fort Worth at rodeo time. In fact, with trail rides clogging all our roads on Go Texan Day, we might even out-Cowtown Cowtown itself.
There’s just one drawback: the weather, an oppressive attribute that also figured into Lamar’s desire to move the capital in the first place. But at least the yellow fever and malaria epidemics are gone—and anyway, humidity is good for your skin. And your soul. And as the soul of Texas, Houston should be the Lone Star State’s capital, once more and forever this time, just as General Sam wanted it to be.
Pages: 1 2
FACEBOOK
RSS
TUMBLR
TM
Read Later