Kyle Barnhart grew up in Panama City Beach, Florida: The Redneck Rivera of the Gulf Coast. He graduated from JR Arnold High School back in 2005 and immediately high-tailed it to Houston, Texas, to attend Rice University. He enjoys food and quantum mechanics and was the 2009-2010 co-editor of the Rice Thresher's Backpage. He has worked as a community development assistant at a local open educational resources web site, a web developer, IT computer-mover and freelance writer.
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I really, really need to get a new camera. After all, how am I supposed to gloat about my awesome new place without any accompanying pictures?
Google Street View, I guess!
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...so fucking creepy.
Anyways. Yes, I am now a proud resident of the lower Montrose/upper University Place. Now I can trade my white-collar Museum District pretension for the tastier, trendier pretension of living in the most liberal part of town.
Jesus, this whole secession thing is funny to me.
I love USA Today; they are a model newspaper. The news and content of any given issue are always more informative and upbeat than the next story you might read in your local rag (hint: it's about a double-suicide car wreck abortion that caused a Republican senator to viciously assault a 12-year-old page and the DOW to drop 500 points). USA Today is a daily pick-me-up for intercontinental travelers wasting away in a world of plastic silverware and business class blues, and they have my deepest appreciation. Plus, there's a sort of campy charm to those blue paper-dispensers that you find in diners, Best Westerns, and airport terminals across this great nation.
In today's edition, I came across a little gem that mentions Houston's rising rate of police force applications as part of an overall national trend. How many? Two hundred more applications per month in Houston since late last year.
I'm a bit confused about how this makes me feel, but I'm so intrigued by this flux of applications that I had to mention it. On one hand, it's encouraging to think that HPD can finally stop hiring every former high school quarterback with a superiority complex-- instead, they can choose from a pool of applicants to fill their beat force with educated, rational, cool individuals. Of course, the article also mentions that ~50% of applicants fail their FBI background check. Maybe we're in for a lot more of the same old, same old.
In any case, it's never a good reflection on the institution of the police force when it takes a global economic downturn to get people excited about the profession.
[Police agencies buried in resumes - USATODAY.com]
With no certain regard for next year's living situation, I let Rice's on-campus housing deadline pass this past week without throwing my name in the hat. Some people will call me crazy; I could have easily scored a lovely little single at the newly-built McMurtry College. They're sticking all of the members of my own residential college and former home-- Will Rice-- at McMurtry while they pull the asbestos out from the air ducts and scrape the green resin off the walls of the 90's. They got pods for bathrooms, grass for roofs, and personal space for all.
See, I love to espouse the benefits of living off-campus. I lived on-campus for two years and off-campus for nearly two years and compiled a laundry list of pros and cons along the way. Generally, living off-campus fosters a sense of independence and adulthood that I found to be markedly lacking while living on-campus. Stumbling out of bed and throwing on a free T-shirt and pajama pants and grumbling about waking up at 10am while you trudge fifty feet to your first class is not a lifestyle I wish to revisit.
There are logistic benefits and detractors, of course, but I think it all boils down to "don't shit where you eat." Your school should be school, your personal life should be your personal life, your job should be some job, and there should never be overlap between them. Your life should be a Swiss-Army knife with separate tools for every facet, not one tool that does everything shittily (read: a spork).
One of my favorite things about living off-campus is seeing the city everyday, particularly the marvelous homes and businesses in the Rice University area. I make a point to drive through the neighborhood west of campus on my way to work every day. The area is interspersed with little parks, two-story brick-and-mortar abodes for the UMC, and the tall, whitewashed walls of the occasional art deco mansion. Basically, I masturbate to the homes along Sunset and the Bissonnet corridor. Stuff white people like, indeed.
But there's no reason to feel guilty about admiring architecture. I think that big houses are a seminal building block of the American Dream-- they're something to want. A goal. A benchmark that might, one day, indicate that you've made it as far as you ever wanted.
That benchmark is sadly lacking from day-to-day on-campus life. Campus architecture isn't lacking, per se, but those buildings do not serve as any sort of motivator. They're not the potential containers of your four-member future family-- they're the dungeons where you toil away, trying to cram yourself with enough knowledge and good work habits to piss further than anyone else in Real World. Living off-campus affords one with daily reminders of what could be, without the jealousy that comes from being 35 and wishing you lived in a bigger place.
You can imagine it on the way to morning classes. You can bring your car to a complete stop at your favorite neighborhood intersection and look and suddenly feel your hand pushing open the ten-foot dark mahogany door to your dream home. You can feel the resilience of the brushed aluminum spiral staircase that leads to an upstairs foyer where you can look back and just barely see down into kitchen with the black marble countertops and matching appliances with the fridge that has a pull-out freezer and... oh Jesus, wait, I just peaked into the master bedroom. There's a small black telescope next to the floor-to-ceiling windows obscured by sliding-panel blinds. The bathroom is a brightly-lit orgy of authentic Mediterranean tile art, five massaging showerheads, this particular jacuzzi, and there are no faucets centered by the dual sinks-- just one knob at each basin that shoots a straight stream of water down from the ceiling. There's a dog in the backyard, barking, but it's hypoallergenic and can speak French. The baby crying down the hall quickly stops when you pull out your BlackBerry and reset his Baby Einstein tapes using the WebUI you developed to control everything on your property, including the turrets which automatically pelt intruders with pepper spray paintballs if they even look at your house crooked. The pepper spray washes out of the carpet easily because the carpet is coated in nano-particles that repel stains and prevent cancer and are worth more than a cinderblock of iridium. There is a sex swing in the master's second walk-in closet which is lined with rose petals and self-cleans in a fashion somewhat similar to today's ovens. Everything in the home is pained either black or white, and you own another one outside San Fransisco.
I think I want to start a business. And I didn't even have to talk about the entertainment system.
See? You're the one holding the steering wheel on this blind drive down the I-10 of life-- so where's the daily nudge to keep you from veering off into the food service industry? Mine is homes. Big, sexy homes that I see every day, because I live off-campus.
Every time I hear fusion food described in conjunction with the phrase "Next Big Thing," I sort of imagine rich, uncultured obese restaurant entrepreneurs throwing darts at a board of countries, trying to decide which two uncanny places to fuse to create the NEXT BIG THING.
Not that Brazil and Japan are all that incompatible, foodwise. I mean, both countries are traditionally known for their high-quality beef products (Kobe yum yum) and their... no, wait, that's basically it. Their native fruits&veges aren't exactly polar opposites; both cultures have explored both the sweet and the savory.
I guess I have a hard time imaginating exactly how the hell you blend the feel of traditional Japanese with the feel traditional Brazilian fare. And that's the problem I have with all these fusion restaurants popping up around Houston-- it seems like an attack on our perceived lack of cultural identity. It's as if we Houstonians are willing to call this ridiculous combination the NEXT BIG THING just because we don't have a solidified identity of our own in this city. Or because we're dumb, and we'll fall for anything.
I for one will probably succumb to our homogenized cultural overlords, who will be serving sushi churrascaria style and dashing table-to-table barefoot on a floor covered in edamame beans and plantain peels.
[Houston - Eating Our Words - Japanese-Brazilian Fusion the Next Big Thing?]
Katharine Shilcutt (the bimbo who stole the Houston Press food blog job that I wanted but didn't apply for and I actually love her but I love calling people bimbos even more) reports today on Eating Our Words that Crave Sushi is one step closer to opening a late-night raw roll retailer in Midtown Houston. And she's predicting windfalls for this trendy tuna tavern, based on nothing but its location and originality.
Uh, what?
I feel like I understand the late-night food industry pretty well, having been a connoisseur since before I started drinking heavily. Going to Waffle House at 3am used to be one of the only entertaining things for a kid to do back in Panama City Beach. Me and my friends would sit back and swap stupid stories while ignorant drunk rednecks would bring in their scantly-clad escorts and get into fights about things like F-150s and mud.
Since moving to Houston, I've navigated the late-night high seas like a stoned stalwart pirate of munchies. Like all Rice students, I started my love affair with the freshman year staples: House of Pies and Taco Cabana. Since then I've conquered all the places that matter. You know, BB's, Bibas, Katz's, Tacos a Go-Go, and etc. There are plenty.
The one trait all these places have in common is that they serve piles of hot, delicious food that caters oh-so-well to the inebriated taste palate. The drunken taste palate, of course, is driven by the basal need to kill something, fry it, and dip it in jalapeno ranch dressing. Cajuns, Greeks, Mexicans, and Jews New York-style delis all know how to do this really, really well. The Japanese, on the other hand, wrap cold fish in cold rice and cold seaweed and douse it in black salt water.
Sorry, Crave. I really am. But considering the decor and the price tag, I just don't see sushi being more than a passing fad in the world of Houston late-night food. Drunks crave fat and stoners crave quantity (of anything edible). Sushi provides neither. Even if this Crave place is initially successful, I have a feeling that Houstonians will be back to their late-night staples of gyros and chimichangas before you can say "I'm not driving."
[Houston - Eating Our Words - Craving a Sneak Preview?]
Finally! Something local to distract me from my unsubstantiated opinions about Sarah Palin!
Since no one has given me an inside scoop on why, how, or what in the world is good or bad about a Baylor/Rice merger, my one well-founded argument about this whole issue actually has nothing to do with the speculative partnership itself:
David Leebron, President of Rice University, really needs to learn how to talk to a student body.
I can't think of the last time he broke news to Rice's paying population in a way that respected their input at all. We are constantly bombarded with new buildings, new colleges, new construction, and changes to campus procedure either midway through the negotiation phase or after the fact. The Pavilion? The coffee shop inside the Pavilion? A complete restructuring of campus finances? Sacking the SAC in favor of a super-strict campus tour? The list goes on. Last time I checked that's not a great way to make people like you, no matter the power you wield.
Rice's students are already weary of Leebron's image-centric improvements to the campus. Some changes have turned out to be been pretty awesome-- like, I don't know, that new recreation center will probably be an improvement over the last one. But after the campus finance fiasco came to a head a few weeks ago, it felt implicit that Leebron would have no choice but to start announcing his future projects before they are fully mature.
And then this story breaks about a potential merger of convenience between Rice and the Baylor College of Medicine. In the Chronicle, of all places.
You know what the difference between a serf and a citizen is, right? Well, the student body's lack of input into the decisions that affect their $40,000/yr sheepskin dimplomas makes them less like Americans and more like Fudal Europeans. Actually, not only the student body, but faculty and employees as well. They must feel about as distant as a body of respected, tenured employees can possibly feel from the day-to-day decisions that affect their paychecks. Neat.
Rice and Baylor have the potential to collaborate and do some really awesome things together, like cure cancer or make candy that turns you into a giant blueberry or whatever the two schools could possibly do with their pooled resources. But the merger also comes with a possible financial detriment to their existing schools of study, an even-more rapid expansion of the campus population, and basically changing what Rice means to the world.
That's not something you just announce to the Rice community after beginning serious deliberations.
Knowing Leebron, the merger will happen. It's not too late to switch to Bioengineering, right?
Taking the good with the bad-- it's the story of the 20something college student. Taking the city with the traffic. Taking the school with the grades. Taking the money with the work. Taking the friends with the dramatics. Taking the girls with the heartbreak. Taking the hookups with the awkwardness. Taking the drinks with the hangover. Ad infinitum.
Eventually you grow up and start ignoring the bad things, one way or another. Maybe you excuse them away with religion. Maybe you become self-absorbed and narcissistic and surround yourself with people who can ignore their problems in the same way. Maybe you just shell up and become so engrossed in work that you stop taking in either the good or the bad. I've worked with people like that.
There's the hard part about moving from adolescence into adulthood-- you experience all the good things yet haven't stopped noticing the drawbacks. You've still convinced yourself that you're hardCORE enough to take both at once, not realizing that the human brain was never meant to be bombarded with as much information as we're exposed to today. So much bad news.
Adolescence was just all the good with none of the bad. Here's a car and some beer, try not to get any girls pregnant between now and college! I probably should have exploited that more than I did.
Adolescence, of course. Not the girls.
Goddammit, there I go again with one of those lofty diatribes. Third in a week. NEED MOAR LIFE UPDATES.
So let's see. Oh, I shaved my face last night. That's kinda epic. I haven't been clean-shaven since the middle of last summer, and I haven't actually seen my cheeks since the winter. I could probably extrapolate some sort of meaning from the shave but, eh, sometimes you just need a change of scenery. Sometimes a shave is just a shave. Last time I shaved my face I was immediately washed in a caustic sense of regret; this time I backed up from the mirror, smiled a big smile and thought to myself "Wow, I look happier."
I guess we'll see.
General self-improvement rolls onward. I spent all of Sunday outside, even going so far as to walk from my apartment to Rice Village, which was probably... what? Two mile walk? I'm bad with distances, but it feels like fifteen miles when you're in sandals. I kept thinking the entire way to the Village that if I were back in Panama City, it would actually be a shorter walk from my old house to the Pier Park shopping center. Both have a Buffalo Wild Wings!
Where was I? Self improvement, right. Being outside isn't something I get to do regularly during the week. I mean, jogging around Hermann Park at 6PM is one thing, but finding yourself midway through the Rice Stadium parking lot at 2PM on a blazing hot Saturday is an outdoors experience I hadn't felt in quite some time. The thing is-- and I hate to say this-- but I actually like being outside. It's the ongoing body image issues coupled with allergies that fight to keep me indoors and inactive. But if I can overcome them one day, I can overcome them any day.
Ah, there it is. The positive summer mindset. The do-anything attitude that I seem to lose over the course of the school year. Rather than suppress and twist it into a tool for my own disillusion like I did last summer, I'd like to take that positivity and run with it. Be the better person.
But inside...
On April 25th, a team of suited-up somebodies tore the plastic wrap off of Rice's newest structural question mark. The Brochstein Pavilion is a huge glass box full of chairs and plasma TV's (sort of like the Situation Room) nestled between the RMC-- Rice's tiny little collection of shops and eateries-- and Fondren Library. I suppose the idea behind this huge glass box was to provide students a place to work and eat at the same time; something more formal than the RMC but less formal than the Library. But like any good idea that Rice's administration has ever squatted out of its brain-thorax, the Pavilion has conjured a huge and stupid mess of problems and bitchy, clever blog posts all over the Internets.
Problems? Enter Dirk's Coffee. It's not really Dirk's Coffee, though. Dirk was an Avant-Garde douchebag who sold all of his coffee to THE MAN a couple of years ago in order to fund his blossoming crank lab. Actually Dirk's Coffee is a rebranding of Dietrich's Coffee, which itself is a brand owned by Starbucks Coffee. Regardless of who actually owns the coffee, there is a circular kiosk that sells coffee inside the Pavilion which is, essentially, owned and operated by Starbucks. This would perhaps be the coolest and most indie thing ever, if...
