Sig Byrd Comics

No, as far as I know Sig Byrd never did comics (unlike other Houston daily newspaper columnists Lynn Ashby and Jeff Millar). But Scott Gilbert adapted one of Byrd's tales. You can read it here.

Sig Byrd's Houston

A recent article in The Houston Press reminded me that I needed to check out Sig Byrd's Houston. So I went on Alibris and bought myself the cheapest copy available, and sat myself down for a read. It was enthralling. Byrd was a newspaper columnist whose column, "The Stroller" was filled with street stories, mainly from neighborhoods where polite white folk rarely went. I'm sure reading it gave them an somewhat forbidden thrill, just as it does for me more than 50 years later. He chronicled the stories of Houston's black and Mexican population, as well as the demimonde of hookers, hustlers, junkies, dealers, bar-flies, beggars, street-corner preachers and honky tonk angels. These columns appeared in The Houston Press--the old daily newspaper, not the current-day weekly--in the 40s and 50s.

A lot has been written about Byrd. The modern Houston Press reveres him and wrote a detailed biography of Byrd, who was evidently a fairly prickly customer. Leon Hale was a colleague and similarly wrote stories about folks who generally weren't all that newsworthy--Hale's were more rural and gentle than Byrd's--and Hale wrote a great column about Byrd when Byrd died. And the record store, Sig's Lagoon, is a double tribute to the man--"Sig" for the man, and "lagoon," a term that Byrd recorded in his column that was used by the 5th Ward boogie-woogie boys to mean "cool."

For a book that has been out of print for decades (and will cost you a pretty penny online), Sig Byrd's Houston has its devotees. They tend to be hipsters with an interest in Houston history--mostly male as far as I can tell, many who are writers mining some of the same ground as Byrd did back in the day. People like John Nova Lomax, Alex Wukman, the owners of Sig's Lagoon, Scott Gilbert, and me.

Each chapter collects a group of columns and is centered around a specific geographic region. Congress Avenue starts off the book. Think of Congress Ave. today--one one side of Main it's all courts and criminal justice-related buildings and businesses. On the other side--some nice old bars like La Carafe and Warren's. I guess it wasn't all that long ago that it was still a pretty seedy street. But in Byrd's time, it was a place of hookers and junkies, like the pill-head protagonist of his first story, Twitchy Tess. Another story tells of the mechanics of how the drug deals on Preston went down., with a man with a scar on his face leaving the reds, yellows and dexxies under certain carpets in open doorways and picking up money from those carpets later. The next chapter is about the 2nd Ward, or "segundo barrio" as it was called. Then as now is was a largely Mexican American neighborhood. One story tells of Chento, a 20-year old veteran of Huntsville with a tattoo of a cross between his eyes and the letters H A T E tattooed on his knuckles (but not L O V E). But then Chento fell in love with Belen, a nice girl who would have nothing to do with a tattooed pachuco. So Van Gogh-style, he uses his knife to cut the cross and the letter E off--before he passes out from loss of blood. Belen witnesses this, screaming. And by the time Chento told Byrd this story, the scars were almost healed and he was walking around with H A T on his knuckles.

If you go to the 400 block of Milam today, one one side there is a multistorey parking garage, and on the other side is a parking lot. Back in Byrd's day, it was "Catfish Reef."

The Reef is bi-racial. The light and dark meet here. Generally speaking, the odd numbers, on the east side, are dark, the even numbers light; but the exception proves the rule.

You can buy practically anything here. Whisky, gin, wine, beer, a one-hundred-and fifty-dollar suit [about $1200 today, according to the BLS], firearms, a four-bit flop, a diamond bracelet that will look equally good on the arms of a chaste woman or a fun-gal. You can buy fried catfish on Catfish Reef. You can buy reefers on the Reef.

The Catfish Reef chapter has several stories about music in Houston; for instance, young boogie-woogie players recording at Martin Nelson's photo, recording and shoeshine parlor. He also uses these columns to try his hand at a little bit of black hipster dialect, such as in this sequence where Gafftop Powell, who has found a diamond ring on the floor of a dancehall, takes it into Marv Bernhard's jewelry store. to be appraised. Bernhard looks at it with his loupe and declares it worthless.

"This," he said, holding out the ring, "is one hundred percent fertilizer." ["fertilizer" is one of Byrd's many humorous euphemisms for more earthy phrases--these columns were written for a family newspaper, after all.]

"Well, I ain't gona lose my cool over it," said Gafftop, taking the ring. "I found it on the floor at the gloss house."

"You might win the favors of an idle fun-gal on an off-night with that," said Mr. Bernhard. "But in cash money, I wouldn't give you a rough for it."

"I ought to have knowed," said Gafftop, looking down at the circlet of rhinestones. "These-here rocks is too big. [...] Do you rebop, Mr. Marv?"

"I rebop," said the jeweler. "When easy rocks come too big, or the big rocks come to easy, they won't get you two. Look, I'll show you the difference."

From his wallet, Mr. Bernhard took an envelope, from the envelope a pill of lovely blue ice, the kind that doesn't defrost, even from its own red, white, and blue fire.

"Lagoo-oo-oon!" said Gafftop, his eyes as big and round and white as hundred-watt globes.

Byrd tells a number of stories set in the rough waterfront dives on 75th Street (aka "Six-Bit Street") north of Canal. There we get tales of foreign sailors, old Wobblies, and the hookers in tight jeans who would sit next to the sailormen at the bars. The corner of Hill and Lyons was known as "Pearl Harbor" for its violence--it was in the middle of the Fifth Ward, also known as the "Bloody Fifth." One of the best stories there is the one about the sorrowful Handsome Easley--released from jail on parole, his most beloved hobby was acting as an unpaid roadie for the jazz acts that came through town. He had been looking forward to handling the Duke's instruments--Duke Ellington would soon be playing in Houston. But Handsome was about to be taken back to prison for breaking parole by drinking beer with a hooker in a bar.  But the story has an unexpected denouement:

Handsome was at the City Auditorium, unpacking the Duke's instruments, like he'd always done. The Board of Pardons must have read that story about Handsome, because they had given him a full pardon just in time to let him be with the Duke and Johnny Hodges and the other musicians when they got to town.

This bit comes from a record store conversation about the inventor of boogie, Pine Top Smith, and his death by being stabbed in the back (while playing piano) in a Galveston night club. Others disagreed and said he was shot in Chicago. (For the record, that's what Wikipedia says as well.) Of course, the point was not the facts but the discussion among enthusiasts, killing time at the record store.

There's lots more here. Sig Byrd's Houston is a rich collection of muscular, unjudgmental writing about what was, for most Houstonians (and presumably for most readers of the old Houston Press) a fairly invisible part of their city.

One simply cannot imagine someone writing feuillitons like this for the Houston Chronicle today. First of all, the Chron wouldn't dare write about criminals with the casual sympathy that Byrd shows (he shows it by telling their stories straightforwardly). Addicts and prostitutes are to be condemned or pitied, but are not to be given voice.

Also, the circumstances were different then. There were three daily papers in Houston, all competing for the same pool of readers--generally a broader pool than what we have today. The Press, as the underdog, had to distinguish itself. If Byrd's earthy urban tales were not to some readers' tastes, well, the Press probably didn't have those readers in the first place.

The modern Houston Press carries on some of the old Byrd tradition, but Houston could really profit from something like "The Stroller" again.

Ultra-Rich Crybaby Threatens Kinkaid, Embarrasses Self, Family

As some of you may know, I went to Memorial High School (class of 81, baby!). Now in sports we had rivalries (for example, we were rivals of the now defunct Westchester High School). That shit was never important to me, though. For me, our real rivals were St. John's and Kinkaid--those were the schools we were always competing with academically. I always was checking out who had more National Merit Semifinalists, who won more trophies at math contests (yes, I entered those as a high schooler), etc.

Twenty-seven years later, I still notice when Kindaid makes the news, as in this post on Dealbreaker.

Hugh “Skip” McGee III is not happy. The former Lehman Brothers head of investment banking/current Barclays employee of the same title is specifically not happy with the hippies at The Kinkaid School. You see, kids, The Kinkaid School is an institution Skippy spends good money to send his children to and lately? The commune seems to be poisoning the McGees’ minds in a dangerous way. And to be honest, Skip has had it. He’s held his tongue ‘til now but not anymore. So what’s going to happen, is Skip is going to sit down and lose his shit in a letter to the school, demanding the dismissal of a whole buncha personnel, and come seriously close to giving himself a hernia. You wanna know why? Skip’s got three reasons:
1. The school made a bunch of high school boys very upset (not just upset, “humiliated”) when it wouldn’t let them dress in drag for a pep rally.
2. Something about “a gay female coach” (Skip’s original draft: “fucking dyke”) who The Skipper wants fired.
3. (The pièce de résistance:) History teacher Leslie Lovett should also be fired because she injects her ‘leftist invective’ in the curriculum and said mean, hurtful things about investment bankers, particularly those working for Lehman and Barclays, and made Skippy’s son cry. Luckily, Skip Jr. wiped his eyes, stood up to Ms. Lovett and said, you are wrong about my dad! He wanted to save Lehman. He wanted to save Lehman so bad!

Whoa! Read the whole thing.This teacher may have been unfair to investment bankers, but Skip McGee didn't do them any favors with this letter. Hoo-hah!

Here's A Company I Wish I Could Short

For the past hundred years, the science of oil and gas exploration has gotten better and better. Seismic techniques have steadily improved, as have wireline technologies. Geologists and geophysicists know more about the Earth than ever. But they all neglected one important thing--the Bible. That's how Zion Oil and Gas hopes to find oil in Israel.



Who needs science when you have Jehovah?

To Commit the Perfect Crime You Need a Perfect Victim

A police report said the 21-year-old Denton woman answered a knock at her door by someone who claimed he was doing field work for a massage class.

She let the man into her apartment and allowed him to massage her, but became suspicious when he asked her to keep taking off more clothes Monday.

Police say the woman finally got the man to leave, but not before he asked her to go on a date.

She declined.

She called the massage school and was told the man was not enrolled. She then called police. (The Houston Chronicle, 12/3/09)

I really don't have anything to add to this nearly perfect piece of journalism.

Shooting a Bicyclist in the Head--Not a Serious Crime, It Turns Out

Regular readers (all three of you) will recall this post, in which an armed lunatic, Charles Alexander Diez, attempted to shoot cyclist Alan Ray Simons in the head. He missed, but the bullet went through Simons' helmet. Don't forget, Simons' baby was on the back of the bike when this occurred, and he was riding with his wife, who was on another bike. Clearly, attempted murder--even against a member of a hated minority (bicyclists)--deserves a serious penalty. Right?

Nope.

Charles Alexander Diez, the former North Carolina firefighter who shot cyclist Alan Simons in the head, has been sentenced to four months in jail.

In an Asheville courtroom last week, Diez pled guilty to shooting Simons during a July 26 roadside confrontation. Said to be upset that Simons was riding his bike with his 3-year-old child, Diez fired his .38 caliber pistol as Simons walked away after the two exchanged words. The bullet struck Simons' bike helmet, narrowly missing his skull.  In August, a grand jury reduced charges against Diez from attempted first degree murder to felony assault. (Brad Aron, Streetsblog.org, November 23, 2009)

It appears that North Carolinans just hate cyclists. Yeehaw, fellers! Let's go shoot us sum of them bicycle faggots!

The latest example? Charles Alexander Diez, the 42-year-old former Asheville firefighter who shot at a bicyclist on Tunnel Road after arguing with him about the safety of cycling on a busy street, got four months in prison for the crime.

That’s 120 days for nearly taking someone's life.

I'm not the only person around town mystified by the light sentence.

“So, you can go shoot at someone riding a bike and get four months in jail? Is that the example they're giving to the community?,” said Nancy Jones, a resident of the Beaverdam area and an avid cyclist. “I feel like we should wear flak jackets now. It gives them the OK. When you're talking about a guy (attempting to) shoot somebody in the head, that's over the top. And to see him getting four months, it's outrageous.”
[...]

In his defense, Diez said in court he simply fired “a warning shot,” that he was the one who “felt truly, truly threatened.”

Now, I know biking shorts can be scary, but really, who's in charge here — the guy with the gun or the unarmed guy riding a bike with his family? Simons said Diez was pointing the gun at his chest when he approached Diez's vehicle.

If you haven't noticed, there's a lot of anger directed at local cyclists.

Nancy Jones says she's had beer bottles thrown at her and had drivers brandish firearms or “buzz her” — intentionally veering at her. She said some sort of animosity is almost standard when she and her husband, Brian, go riding. To say Asheville is not a cyclist-friendly town is putting it mildly.

The Joneses just don't buy Diez's version of events, and they're outraged by the sentence. So are other cyclists they know.

“I was always taught that if you aim a gun at somebody, you're trying to kill them,” Nancy Jones said. “If it's a warning shot, you fire it up in the air.”

“If a cyclist shot a fireman, judge or prosecuting attorney in his head, in front of his family, what sentence do you think he/she would receive,” Brian Jones asked. (John Boyle, Asheville Citizen-Times, November 23, 2009)

The Man With the Candy

I picked up this book a few weeks back at a book show. A piece of scary, mostly forgotten Houston history, it became relevant once again as the remains of another victim of Dean Corll was discovered, nearly 40 years after the fact. The author of this book about the Dean Corll serial killings really has it in for Houston, down to his mocking depictions of people's accents (Author Jack Olsen seems to consider himself a master of dialect).

But one thing he gets right is the sheer awfulness and incompetence of the Houston Police Department. Houston was the murder capital of America, and its police force was undermanned, underpaid, and run by a psychotic, Herman Short, who spent more money on running an anti-subversive unit than on homicides. The disappearance of 26 boys from the Heights was poo-poohed by the police, who wrote them all off as runaways.

Houston's police continued to be a bad joke throughout the 70s (for example, consider Joe Campos Torres and Randy Webster), and the local law enforcement system continues to struggle with legitimacy--challenged every time an exonerated man walks free.

Whatever its flaws, this book is a chilling reminder of how bad things were in Houston and in the Heights. It's hard to believe the affluent Heights of today has anything to do with the white slum that was the Heights in the 1970s.

Mega-Dick

Guy brags about getting a dude fired for using the word "pussy" (in the vulgar sense) in the comments section of the newspaper. (Hat-tip to Photography Is Not a Crime.)

Houston Streets 17--Under the Elysian Viaduct

This was a really brief ride, almost not worth mentioning. But as short as it was, it was interesting. My intent had been to try to cover a bunch of downtown streets on a Sunday when traffic is light. (Lots of other cyclists had the same idea. Downtown is a popular Sunday destination for the two-wheeled set.) I took a bus into town and got off at Franklin  at Crawford. I wanted to start in the extreme northeast corner and work my way south and west. But that's not what happened. I ended up on the Elysian Viaduct, a freeway-like elevated road out of downtown. (This will apparently be the location of the Hardy Toll Road extension into Downtown. It is my sincere hope that the residents of the Northside fight this abomination tooth and nail.) Once I was on the Elysian Viaduct, I had two choices--turn around and return downtown, or follow it until it ends. So I chose the latter.



This is a photo of a stable at Maury and Lyons. If you have ever taken a carriage ride downtown, this is where they keep the horses. The place looks pretty shabby, I have to say. After I came back down to earth, I shot this photo:



You can see a horse feeding and it looks pretty healthy to me (it's hard to see from the photo, but its mane was dyed purple! This was the day after Halloween.) So even though the place looks a bit shabby, the horses seem well-taken care of. That said, looking at this urban stable made me think of the one in The Wire, the place where Bubbles buys a "hot shot" and where Dukey ends up. Brr.

I finally came down at Brooks and started heading back downtown on Maury. I was freaked out because the street was covered with literally thousands of caterpillars. They all looked like this:



And they were booking! I've never seen caterpillars move so fast.

Then I stumbled across the most interesting discovery of this ride, Blumenthal Sheet Metal.  The official address is 1710 Burnett St., but it appears that their facility takes up a whole block--Leona on the south, Burnett on the north, Hardy on the west and Elysian on the east. Blumenthal is a sheet metal fabrication plant, which makes them on the face of it no different from hundreds of small industrial firms in Houston (the secret engines of our city's economy). Blumenthal has been in business for over a 100 years, which definitely distinguishes them, but what also distinguishes them is that a lot of the fabrication they do is for artists.



Like this piece in the "back yard" of the facility. I don't know the artist or if it's even finished, but wow! A nice thing to stumble across when riding through a run-down industrial neighborhood.

Here is the "front" of the complex.


To the right of the door was this sheet metal column.



It is covered with lots of witty little details, like this one:



Then at Burnett and Maury, you see these lovely undulating screens.



On their website, they have a list of artists they have worked with, many pretty well-known locally (Hanna Hillerova, John Runnels) and even internationally (Carlos Cruz-Diez). I urge you to check out the site--you'll be surprised at how many well-known pieces around town were fabricated here.

I am convinced that Houston needs more "lawn art"--privately owned sculptures in people's front yards. We're a sprawling city with lots of big front yards which have little utility (we don't barbeque in the front yard, or keep a pool there, for example). But it is the entry, physically and visually, into your home. Therefore, a perfect place for a sculpture or other piece of lawn art. Pieces like the screens and the columns are perfect--tough and weatherproof, heavy (not likely to be stolen), attractive... All you homeowners with disposable income, about to redecorate your house for the fifth time--pay some attention to the front lawn and get some lawn art. I'm sure the metal-bashers at Blumenthal could hook you up with some excellent artists.

I made my way south, this time at ground level. I crossed I-10 on this pedestrian bridge that at first glance appeared completely derelict.



Then I rode back downtown, hitting every street north of  Minute Maid Park (pretty boring--mostly parking lots and sports bars) and then swinging around to Discovery Park. Two things worth noting--Second Seating, an art exhibit in a space next to Irma's Restaurant (at Chenevert and Ruiz) and the Globes in Discovery Park. But I am writing about them on my other blog, The Great God Pan Is Dead (see here and here).