Dear Houston
Dear Houston,
I’ve wanted to write this for a while. But I’ll be honest. I’m too good at procrastinating.
After the Astros lost the World Series in what could very well be the end of an incredible run, I felt I owed it to you. Maybe it could be a pick me up!
Then, I procrastinated for like a week. Classic.
Anyway . . . I love you Houston.
I know it didn’t always seem that way. I moved down there - a bushy-browed, pasty, tribal Masshole – straight out of college. And I thought your teams . . . sucked.
I was unimpressed by the 2011 and 2012 Texans. I thought the Rockets were sensitive little babies [PS, that ended up being true]. And I thought the Astros were a waste of my time. I can only imagine how it was for some to listen to a cocky, loud kid tell a city why the teams they rooted for were shit.
I’m sure at times I sounded like someone who viewed Houston as nothing more than a pit stop, and for that I can’t apologize enough. Because for someone who’s wandered the country because of my parents divorcing, pursuing the best education possible, and taking whatever sports radio job I could luck myself into, Houston became…home.
It's hard to explain Houston to someone who hasn’t lived there. You might think its some saloon filled with cowboy hatted, shotgun wielding Texans (though that does sound pretty entertaining). But it’s actually a sprawling metropolis with few land marks outside of a crumbling old dome and a bridge that sometimes features inspirational graffiti. It’s hotter than hell, gets brutalized by hurricane, flooding, and even…ice storms?
“Fucking hell PAWL, is this a roast?”
But it’s an incredible place. It’s the American dream, with people of every ethnicity, every background, and THE best food in the United States . . .
[Editor’s note: That’s right, not you New York. Take your shitty attempts at barbecue, toss them in the trash, and cry more about how your choking Yankees got cheated.]
. . . and the best people I’ve ever met.
Houston was a bunch of radio lifers from every age and all across the country who treated me like FAMILY [read it like you’re Dom Toretto]. For some of them, their love language was giving me shots. Rumplemintz [Damnit Kaden] and “Windex” [Damnit Jilly] may have performed unspeakable horrors upon my liver, but I don’t know how I’d have survived my first years in Houston without our degen fraternity.
On the mic? I worked with so many hosts, producers, reporters, and bosses – I’ll list ‘em below - and it never felt like work with any of them. ANY. Sure, part of that is working in a fun industry like sports talk radio. But I always felt like I was with friends who genuinely cared about me. That feeling was, and still is mutual. #FAMILY
Houston was a TV station that let me be me. Which is to say, f*cking weird. Sounds like…FAMILY. I got to be loud and goofy in front of the Kube-57 camera. I was never forced put on makeup, get a spray tan, or have my massive eyebrows done professionally despite being a paste-monster with forests on my forehead. We tried things that conventional TV would never try and laughed while busting our asses to put it together. It was a great place, and one that had my back in a way that no other job has.
Houston is a flag football team where a bunch of randos were thrown together, destroyed the league [FLEX], became close friends, and actually produced a real FAMILY with a baby to boot.
Houston is a pair of pals – one of whom played on that flag football team - who became the big brothers I always wanted. Hey, aren’t brothers a part of . . . FAMILY?
Houston is a horde of friends (that I met through one of those brothers) who did everything together. Raiding and pillaging bars across H-Town. Vegas. Yacht Week in Greece. Yacht Week in Croatia. Backyard parties. I was never alone, because no one ever lets you be alone. Friends? No. I don’t have friends. I have FAMILY.
Houston is a city ruled by acts of kindness. I’ve never been prouder to live somewhere after the way we responded to Hurricane Harvey. It inspired an army of community selflessness that seemed like miracle. And it lasted months. Because lifting up your neighbor is just expected there.
There was a massive line out the door and around the street just to volunteer in the photos above at the George R. Brown center. They had more helpers than they knew what to do with! Being the cynic I often am, I didn’t know it was possible for a city to come together like this. And in that moment, I knew I loved Houston. And I don’t give a shit what the haters say, we deserved this:
I wasn’t born there. And technically it’s not my hometown. But this sprawling, humid, melting pot has a way of changing you for the better. Co-workers, listeners, flag football teammates, random strangers at the bar, you’ve got friends everywhere. It’s family. It’s home. And…
Thank you, Houston. I’ll love you forever.
SHOUTOUT TIME
To our off the mic degen fraternity:
Josh Innes, Jilly, J.J. Kaden, Job Tennant, Joel Moreland, Ben Nance, Jared Blondeau, Sherita Ben [RIP], Ben Nance, P.K. and Denise Kalentzis
To the people I yelled at mics with:
Weekends with Norm Miller, Greg Koch, Dan Mathews, Barry Warner, Fred Davis, De Hansen, Terrance Harris, Shaun Bijani, Alex Del Barrio, Matt Hammond, Matt Murphy, Patrick Creighton, Ellis Wyms, Nate Griffin, David Saltzman, Brett Dolan and Ted Johnson with Lara Hall, Eddie Penn, Ben Gehry, Josh Reese, Brandon Porter [RIP] running the 1s, 2s, and 3s.
Filled in with John Lopez, Landry Locker, Cody Stoots, Nick Wright, Rich Lord, plus Wade Smith, Jeremy Branham, Kailee Wong, Derek Fogel and Travis Johnson with Brian MacDonald and Andrew Pisano producing.
DAILY with my radio brothers Brien Straw (with Lara), then Josh Beard, then Ryan Rockett and occasionally with Figgie Figg, mornings with Mike Meltser [my ‘Cuse psychologist], Seth Payne, and Chris Jones.
The postgame show with Sean Pendergast and Cecil Shorts
Texans broadcasts with John Harris, Marc Vandermeer, Deepi Sidhu, and Drew Dougherty
Rockets broadcasts with Joel Blank
Plus, the Spoiler Alert TV show podcast with Jim Mudd
Reporting for Robert Henslee with Will Grubb, Michael Williams, and Adam Spolane
Working on the website with Garret Heinrich, Brad Spoon, and Tim Nesmith
Plus producing for Laura Reynolds [AND comparing cats], Terry Michaels, and Bo Corona.
And the guy who hired me, plus the guy who gave me a shot: Gavin Spittle and Ryan McCredden
And the TV Show Homies
John Lopez, Patti Smith and John Granato, Travis Johnson, Melissa Keeling, Courtney Roland and Glenn Davis
Producing the show with Marin Morales, Jeffrey Mathis, and Vince Rockwell
The rest of the team: Adam Ocasio, John Murphy, Charles Adiukwu, and Corey Hanks behind the scenes
And the guy who let this face for radio on TV: J.D. Huey