Mayor Turner and City Council Colleagues:

In my experience, given our huge municipal challenges, much more needs to have changed, since I first sat at the Council table 12 years ago. It’s been too much business-as-usual, too much of old think, not enough INNOVATION.

Yet we are surrounded by INNOVATION – at the Texas Medical Center, in corporate and non-profit think-tanks, in university research laboratories, and at the Houston Technology Center. Regrettably, two places INNOVATION has lagged behind are at HISD and at City Hall. Let’s consider City Hall.

INNOVATION at City Hall is about pro-active rather than re-active government. It is an on-going process, a continuum of coordinated, interrelated actions addressing larger goals, like polices and regulations needed to build a walkable city, or to reduce flooding, and traffic congestion. It’s not a series of one-shot fixes. It is an inspired on-going culture of positive change, committed to data-driven and outcomes-driven government.

INNOVATION involves much more than timid incrementalism, risk-averse ordinance updates, or more “studies” and “committee reports.” It requires rising above the limitations of city departmental “silos,” (disconnected, playing by their own rules, rather than collaborating), as we see for example at Public Works.

INNOVATION requires new levels of thinking, goal-setting and collaboration at the horseshoe. It means all departments guided by the same overall goals, playing by the same rule book. It is about defining desired outcomes, and pro-actively delivering RESULTS. This means doing things better and differently, in creative ways, breaking through the barriers of the status quo and business-as-usual.”

WHERE CITY HALL CAN INNOVATE? EXAMPLES:

• Solid Waste: Raise the recycling rate from a lowly 18% of our waste stream to above 50%, based on national best practices, as in Denver. Apartment complexes, compost kits, and FOG should be included.
• Parks: Within five years, every resident lives within a safe 5-minute walk of a public park, including smaller “pocket” parks, connected to Bayou Greenways.
• Overlay Districts: Major overhaul of our obsolete “Development Code” and related permitting procedures, providing for Special Planned Urban Districts (SPUDs), similar to the Old Sixth Ward Historic overlay District. Customized regulations, procedures and incentives should better balance neighborhood and developer interests. Recognize that “one-size-fits-all” regulations do not work in a city as diverse as Houston. Let’s provide for more useable green space, by removing incentives for overcrowding sites with unwarranted density, while allowing higher density for workforce housing.
• Neighborhood Revitalization: Adopt specific plans, projects and incentives, to facilitate mixed-income neighborhoods, providing for affordable housing choices, new jobs, and closing of the wealth gap. Recognize that severely distressed areas representing 60% of city land is just not acceptable.

Since cities are always changing and evolving, to keep up, Houston must innovate….. or just muddle along, or else stagnate. There is little room in-between! Innovative initiatives await a collaborative Mayor and City Council.

Clearly, the City of Houston has an “innovation problem.” This is also a lesson for our younger generation leaders, whether it’s with the City or in their personal lives, innovation can make life better. Our Mayor, Sylvester Turner has an initiative to promote walkable urbanism, which is important to our health and quality of life. Unless the City makes innovative changes, very little is likely to occur anytime soon. We will just be ‘stuck’ driving in our cars.

So, I will leave my readers with this: In a car dependent Houston most of us get around by driving alone. Encapsulated and isolated in a car, we don’t experience much of city life at all. In order to change this, we need innovation! Since cities are always changing and evolving, to keep up, Houston must innovate…..or just muddle along, or else stagnate. There is little room in-between!

On any given day, one can drive or walk around Houston and spot a dozen tantalizing public projects, exhibitions, and creative endeavors throughout the city. From new city engagement with public parks, bike trails, university campuses, and museum properties, there’s a plethora of signs of our artistic driven initiatives and dozens more to be found. Houston is an incredibly supportive arts city and more sustainable than its metropolitan counterparts. Of its many museums, institutions, nonprofits, galleries, and private institutions, there are myriad national and international projects on the burner building exposure for local and regional artists. Not all projects in this state are presented only for other Texans to see. We all know the story of the big fish in the little pond. However, as early back as the 1930s, Houston has been working on cross pollination projects with groups and organizations from around the world to build on that exposure and present our talents abroad and throughout the country. It’s certainly not a transcendent idea to build up the city’s arts reputation by exposing our creatives to other parts of the world, but there has been some exhilarating efforts recently. As a major museum, it’s mandatory to keep the international conversation fresh and at the forefront. Same goes for many of our veteran institutions and nonprofits. Spaces like DiverseWorks, Project Row Houses, FotoFest, and Art League Houston have worked diligently to maintain this ongoing conversation.

In 1948 The Foundation of the Contemporary Arts Association (CAA), now the Contemporary Arts Museum, became known within Houston’s playing field. Their first round of exhibitions focused heavily on internationally known artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Arthur Dove, and Joan Miro. The idea was to keep Houston validated on a national and international level and to continue to educate the local collector base and everyday art viewer, combined with the efforts of the Museum of Fine Arts. CAA, MFAH, and private collections such as The Menil Collection and their family efforts continued to grow and gain momentum and putting Houston into play worldwide. For the last 70 years the efforts to create a constant dialog has persisted as the primary motivation. Today, this can be discovered by just flipping through an art history book. As the years go by, the context of the dialog changes as the climate of the art world evolves. The presenting realm becomes vast, complicated, and difficult to navigate in different directions. The exhibition spaces as well as the artists surrounding them must remain nimble and dialed into these directions, ever changing and ever moving. Factors such as financial temperature, regional support, and overall stability certainly play a prominent role into what can and can not happen. However, remaining on a swivel with a 360 view is key and is certainly a pleasing quality we have recently seen in Houston.

Lina Dib, “Artist Time Management Machine” at Debtfair at Art League Houston

Patricia Alvarez is an anthropologist and filmmaker whose scholarly research and creative practice develops in the folds between ethnography, critical theory, and the documentary arts. Her most recent works converge on issues of gender and ethnic representations in neoliberal, post-authoritarian Peru. Alvarez’s films and installations have been exhibited in national and international film festivals and galleries across the US and Puerto Rico. She completed her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology with a Designated Emphasis in Film and Digital Media, and her BA in Anthropology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piers, and Alvarez is currently working a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Rice University. Her creative practice speaks volumes and while currently a Houstonian, she has aggressively traveled the last several years, presenting her stunning short film Entretejido, an observational-ethnographic film that weaves together the different sites and communities involved in making alpaca wool fashions. The film explores the varying representations of indigeneity that emerge out of these encounters, which both challenge and reproduce historically-rooted racism. A sensorial immersion into the textures that compose this supply chain from animal to runway, the film brings viewers into contact with the ways objects we wear are entangled in racial politics and histories. Much like her other works, there is depth and diversity in the overall delivery. Once through the documentary movements of the film, contemporary art delivered through fashion is brought to light as an art form cultivated through industry and branding, but originating from small Peruvian villages. Cutting from village-based storefront sewing circles to high end fashion runways, local craft becomes high art, while the film remains a story of heritage and new beginnings.

Debtfair at Art League Houston

Over the past 6 years, Art League Houston has consistently reformulated its programming to incubate diversity and multinational reach. In 2024 Occupy Museums, a New York City based activist and progressive arts organization, and ALH joined forces locally on a recent project, Debtfair. The collective invited local artists to submit original works for a group exhibition based on their own economic realities as a way to explore how artists think about the concept of debt in relation to their own art-making practice. Debtfair, is an ongoing artistic campaign to expose the relationship between economic inequality in the art market and artists’ growing debt burdens, explores the idea that all spaces function with a layer of extraction just below the surface. Here in Houston, the project received mixed reviews upfront due in part to the city’s unique artistic financial structuring, but quickly cultivated a sweeping discourse over the next year presenting the project and Houston collaboration in Chicago and Warsaw, Poland. With momentum growing, the New York-based group was chosen to participate in the Whitney Biennial and brought along with them the Houston chapter, represented by ALH. “Michael Peranteau and I were excited to learn that the Debtfair project by Occupy Museums had been selected for the 2024 Whitney Biennial,” Visual Arts Director Jennie Ash eagerly commented. “It has been great to see a project that we believed in travel internationally to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw last year, and now be developed to reflect artists from around the country for an exhibition like the Whitney Biennial.”

Included in Debtfair and its international exhibitions was multidisciplinary artist and anthropologist Lina Dib. Her installations and compositions range from the experimental to the ethnographic and investigate socio-technical and ecological change. Dib is an affiliate artist at the Topological Media Lab at Concordia University in Montreal and Tx/Rx labs in Houston, and a research fellow at the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Rice University, where she also teaches. Dib and her practice are versatile and have landed her exhibitions at such institutions as Lawndale Art Center, Houston; Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco; MOP Projects, Sydney, and The Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Dib’s sculpture “Artists Time Management Machine (ATM Machine)” features a 1970s modified time card punch machine. Each time card, as it would be at the workplace, rests alongside in a unified slot system and punched with phrases such as “Writing,” “Fucking Off,” and “Thinking I Should Have Been a Doctor.” The sculpture reads more as an installation element, part of a larger picture, and I found this intriguing about the work. Her piece certainly maintained as one of the stronger pieces in the Houston collection and represented Dib’s ongoing archaeological creative process and complimented Occupy Museums’ participation at the Whitney.

Harold Mendez, “When the night is going wrong or when the day is full of empty promise.” Courtesy of the artist and Tiffany & Co.

Former CORE Fellow and Houstonian Harold Mendez was also selected to participate in this years Whitney Biennial. For the Whitney, in collaboration with Tiffany and Co., Mendez presents a sterling-silver pre-Columbian death mask, now a high end conceptual object, paying homage to his ancestors. “Let X stand, if it can for the one’s unfound (After Proceso Pentágono) II” features a crumpled and marred photo of a man’s head being yanked, punched, pulled, and attacked by unknown assailants from outside the frame. Mendez successfully recreated the photo by the Mexican art collective Grupo Proceso Pentágono. Both pieces show his depth and minimal approach of subject and object and his extraordinary grasp on culture, history, and political temperature. His time spent as a Core Fellow benefited both Mendez and the Houston community with his ongoing projects and collaborations with such spaces as Project Row Houses, Artpace, Sicardi Gallery, Lawndale Art Center, and a dozen more side projects. Now spending most of his time in LA, he continues to maintain a solid presence across the country with his exhibitions and begins on his MacArthur Foundation project in Havana, Cuba in 2024.

Houston sits on a solid foundation for new opportunities to emerge everyday. The creative community within the region is fertile and advantageous with a great many key supporters at hand. While at times still honing our national and international arts coverage through the glossy press world, the unique local structure allows flexibility and bold outlets for our artists and institutions. The benefit of this has been generating a strong community with prevalent diversity throughout exhibitions, collaborations, and the direction of local artists. The overall conversation Houston continues to provide is a catalyst for drawing in creatives from neighboring cities and countries and is ever present within much of the curations being set forth. Growing programs and festivals such as DiverseWorks’ Diverse Discourse and Mitchell Center’s annual CounterCurrent, which just concluded this weekend, are prime examples of these successful partnerships that import and export talent. Houston is the third largest arts city in the country and it is certainly satisfying to see our vision projecting past the foreground and beyond the horizon from so many local talents.

I’ve found that no matter how many shows I attend, no matter how much I dig into the depths of the Houston music scene, there’s always an artist that seems to slip by from time to time. It’s just how it seems to go, which is possibly how myself and everyone else missed Houston’s Shonnie Murrell. Star of the BET series Season of The Tiger, an accomplished performer with her own signature line of drumsticks, and even a song credit with Drake, Murrell has been making waves since the mid-2000s. After catching her perform at Nightingale Room, I was blown away at with her intense drumming coupled with her stellar voice, and left feeling that she’s an artist every Houstonian should know about. Now with a new television show in the works and live performances being booked, the Louisiana-born and Houston-raised artist is gaining steam and headed to reach people outside of the 713 area code.

Free Press Houston:  You were born in Jonesboro, Louisiana but you were raised in Houston, correct? What high school did you attend here and what brought you back here after college?

Shonnie Murrell: Yes, that’s correct. I attended Sharpstown High School in which I made a numerous amount of history over there. After college, I just wanted to come back to establish my music and travel the world. Houston raised me.

FPH:  You were the third female in the history of Grambling State University to be named Master Drill of their famed Tiger Marching Band. Has there been another since you graduated and did you ever consider staying there and leading the team after graduation?

Murrell: There has been one more after me and we had a long conversation on what it takes to be in that position. I actually have certain individuals — females on the drum-line — that I mentor every year, mainly freshman who are having a hard time adjusting. They are hand picked by my band director who is my mentor Dr. Edwin Thomas.

FPH:  You were featured on the BET reality series Season of The Tiger. Was it strange going from being a student to being on camera?

Murrell: No, it wasn’t strange due to the fact that when you are apart of the “World Famed” Tiger Marching Band, you constantly have cameras on you. But I will say that often times I would forget that I had a mic on!

FPH:  Since the Tiger Marching Band is such a male dominated group, was it difficult to lead? Did it solidify your drive behind performing as an entertainer?

Murrell: Oh my god, yes! I really had to carry myself as a male and be extremely hard on everyone every single day and I could not let anyone get away with anything. It most definitely did solidify my drive as being an entertainer they made me stronger and made me realize if you want work hard for it. Blood, sweat and many tears!

FPH: You’ve opened for Lil’ Wayne and Rick Ross, you’ve performed alongside Al Jarreau and Miki Howard, and you’ve appeared in tracks with Drake and Warren G., to name a few. Has it ever felt like you’ve arrived or is it hustle from start to finish, no matter what you’re doing?

Murrell: I have been truly blessed with all the great legends that I have encountered. No, I have never felt as if I arrived, still the same me all day, everyday. Plus, my village of people who raised me would not ever allow me to get beside myself! I have no choice but to remain humble in this industry which will take people a very long way.

FPH:  As someone who has their own line of drumsticks, another TV show in the works, and is well known as a multi-instrumentalist who can sing, dance, and rap, is it difficult to find one path to focus on as an entertainer and artist?

Murrell: No, it is not difficult by far. It’s really fun and exciting when you’re able to do more than one thing in this game. Now it’s like you have to be able to have so many things going on at once to stay afloat and other things on top of those things. Many options and I zone in on all to perfect my talents.

FPH: I know that you are driven by the ability to empower women in the music industry as well as in all walks of life. Do you have any advice for women or anyone who are getting into the music industry?

Murrell: I have so much to say on this one. To all the artists I would have to say do not sell yourself short, trust your intuition, especially ladies, you do not have to sleep your way to the top, just work hard, never be anxious for anything, and perfect practice makes perfect. Two major things I will say is to be sure to believe in yourself because there will be times that you will not, and lastly, keep God first in everything that you do.

FPH: You went to college on a scholarship for drums, correct? Now that schools have begun cutting marching band funds, what can people do to make sure that schools still have the funding to keep a marching band going?

Murrell: Yes, I went on a full music scholarship as well as academically. As a former band teacher who had nothing at this last school I worked at, I will say to pull in as many of your connections as possible! Fundraising is the ultimate key, getting parents involved and being sure that the staff is supports you 100 percent.

FPH: When I first saw you perform, I was reminded of the legendary Sheila E, except I don’t remember her having as strong of a voice as you do. I know you were just featured on a track with Houston’s Genesis Blu, but will we see a full length album anytime soon?

Murrell: Oh yes, I get that quite often. She is one of my mentors as well. I have received her blessings as well as a few pointers. That’s like my God-Mom in my head. Thank you for the compliments. Absolutely, I am currently working on a full length album as we speak with my band, my management company BPM Music Group LLC, producer Eric Williams of Intervals Music Group, super songwriters and more. We will also be recording everything live, video shoot and listening party all at once. It will be invite only so I hope to see you there.

You should definitely keep an eye on what Murrell has going on in the next year.  With a resume that stands out, and credits with some of the hottest artists going, Shonnie Murrell is proof that sometimes, you can do pretty much everything and still stay under some people’s radar.

In my life, I’ve seen a lot from the skateboarding world.  I’ve seen the sport actually get called a sport, I’ve seen it go from skaters being called outcasts to skaters being called cool, and I’ve seen more and more skaters from Texas become pro.  However, when I started skating at the age of twelve, there was pretty much only one pro skater from Texas, John “Tex” Gibson. Coming from Pasadena and getting on the cover of Thrasher, Gibson was different from everyone else in style and that he was ours.  The Houston born skater was always a source of inspiration in that anything is possible.  After vert skating started to go away, the fact that I could see “Tex” anytime I wanted when he played with the killer band Sugar Shack was never lost on me.  Even talking with Tommy Guerrero about Gibson still trips me out, and proves that when you’re amazing, the whole world knows.  Now with his own skateboard company Embassy Skateboards, Gibson still proves that anything is possible, even for a kid born in Houston, Texas. Free Press Houston was more than thrilled to get to pick the brain of one of the most original skaters to ever carve a pool.

Free Press Houston: You were born in Houston and were raised in Pasadena correct? What got you into skating and what was the skate scene in Pasadena like back then?  

John “Tex” Gibson: I started in the mid 1970’s, 1976 or 1977, when everyone had a Nash deck.  I dug my older brother’s deck out of the garage, and in Pasadena we always had these great ditches to skate.  We took the old Gulf Coast Skate Park fiberglass ramp and moved it down here, where it traveled around Pasadena until it landed in a backyard.  That’s how I met Ken Fillion.  There’s nothing to do in Pasadena, so we just skated a lot and we had a really strong scene because of that.  

FPH:  Where did the “Tex” nickname come from? Was that something you did yourself or was it from the California guys?

Gibson:  When I was sponsored by Caster, in the Summer of 1979 they flew me out to California after seeing me in a contest in Oklahoma City.  I was placing in a contest and everyone called me “that redheaded kid from Texas.”  That’s what everyone knew me as, they couldn’t remember my name, just “the redhead kid from Texas.”  So that’s where Tex came from. I hated it at first, but it grew on me eventually.  

FPH:  What year did you start riding for Zorlac and was it ever weird for you to see the guys from Metallica holding your deck with the Pushead graphic?

Gibson:  I started in 1978, back when Jeff Newton was making the decks outta’ his garage.  The Dallas guys would come down here and skate these boards with the name Zorlac etched into the decks which we thought was really cool.  The Dallas guys were always so snobbish, so when I went to Dallas to be in a contest, it was cool that Jeff approached me to ride for them.  He’s who took me to Oklahoma right after I’d learned Ollie Airs.  Chris Strople from Caster approached me to ride for them, so I did.  But then the company bombed after Bill Caster got sick, so I went back to Zorlac and that’s when I got my own board.  

I was flattered by the Metallica thing.  We were all such fans of their music, but the whole Metallica thing eventually fell apart after Newton had all of these decks and shirts made, and they were flying off of the shelves.  Lars got involved and the band collectively wanted something like four or five dollars from every deck sale, and they wouldn’t let Jeff sell any of the Metallica branded shirts.  So he had this warehouse full of shirts he couldn’t sell, which helped cause a lot of the financial problems that caused Zorlac to fold.

FPH:  You were the first Texas skater to turn pro, was there a lot of pressure or was it all about fun, and did that ever resonate with you, the magnitude of it?

Gibson:  No, it didn’t resonate really.  Vicki Vickers turned pro before me, but I think that because she was originally from Houston but moved out to California early on, people considered me to be the first.  When I turned pro, skating was completely dead.  My first professional contest at Whittier, they had to scrape pennies together to get me out there.  

FPH:  I remember the Alva team photos, and everyone kind of had a similar look in the pics. What year did you head to Alva and what was it like riding with guys who seemed to be the renegades of the skate world?

Gibson:  A lot of those guys were into the whole Rastafarian thing, so they all had dreads.  Me and Craig Johnson didn’t do the dreads thing cause’ he had already had them and it wasn’t my thing.  The team photo I think you’re talking about, we were into wearing black leather jackets at that time cause’ we thought it looked cool.  But we also had them on because that photo was taken in Chicago, and it was like twenty two degrees outside when it was taken.  

When I signed with Alva, I was speaking directly to Tony himself.  After I signed the deal, I noticed that his business partner was this guy named John Falahee, who was with Gyro wheels when I was with Caster.  He was really rude to me back then, so I wasn’t pleased to have to deal with his arrogant attitude when I was with them.  I was with Alva from 1987 to 1989, and I left because vert was dying and John sent me to do a skate demo that was supposed to have a vert ramp. But when I showed up they wanted me to do tricks on a curb instead and the ramp was nowhere to be found, and I slammed my board into it and broke one of my trucks because I wasn’t about to do tricks on a curb.  So, after all of that, I left the team.

FPH:  What year was it when you realized that vert skating was dying or dead and did you have a backup plan at the time?

Gibson:  That incident at the demo was when I realized vert was dead.  So I left skateboarding and I went to technical school to learn how to record bands.  But after getting into it, I realized there really wasn’t that much money in it, and it was going to be difficult to live off of it.  So, for the last fifteen years I’ve been at Houston Grand Opera with Eddie Hawkins from that band Horseshoe.  There’s a union and it’s a great gig, I love working there.

FPH:  You were in the band Sugar Shack, who I know had a huge fanbase including Little Steven. While the band changed the sound from long haired punk to garage over the years, was there a reason that you guys called it quits or had it just run it’s course?

Gibson:  We were all kind of shocked when it ended.  But you have to remember that they had been doing the band since 1987, and I didn’t join until 1994 when they were doing more garage rock.  We put out a record with an Australian label and we got to tour Australia.  That whole ride was a blast.  A lot of great people and great bands.  We did a couple more records, but after people started getting married and having kids, Andy was just kind of done with it.  So I guess you can say that it ran its course.  It’s sad that it’s over, but when we did those reunion shows, we realized quickly how much they wore us out.

John “Tex” Gibson with Skateboarding Legend Steve Olson. Photo: Lee Leal

FPH:  Embassy Skateboards started up in 2024, can you tell us where the name came from and were you scared to do your own thing?

Gibson:  The name came from Lee Leal.  He and some other guys had moved to DC at one point and they had a house near the White House that had shows, parties, and what not.  These guys from Cedar Crest (Country Club) used to hang out there all of the time and they referred to the house as the Texas Embassy.  So, when we were setting up the logo, we went with that name, but changed it to just Embassy to make it more global of a name.  

I wasn’t scared.  We steered from doing a retail thing because that’s just a nightmare.  We were just like, “let’s just do decks,” and that was what we knew best.  We started up in a recession while everyone was broke.  We just took things slow and started from the underground.  

FPH:  You have a respectable crew of riders including legends like yourself, with Ken Fillion and Craig Johnson. How do you find new team members and how often do you skate nowadays?

Gibson:  Well, nothing was happening in the 2024’s and every company just wanted street skaters.  Lee wanted all of the Texas guys to be a part of the team, as well as give each of us partial ownership in the company.  So, we did it for the love.  Lee does all of the work.  He travels to get the newest skaters and keep things going smoothly.  As team riders and pros, we put our board royalties back into the company to help it grow and increase our ownership stake.  Doing that helps pay for the new guys to travel to contests and keep the name out there, so it works best for everyone.  

Back in the day, Texas had such a strong scene with skating and music, especially in the 1980’s. It felt like, in other places, when the ramps were all torn down from the skateparks, they didn’t really know what to do.  Because Texas never really had much, we were used to just building our own ramps.  In 1983, we even did a backyard tour across the country, and it was really cool.  We just wanted that kind of vibe again with the company. That like it’s always been, we do our own thing here in Texas.

FPH:  I know from talking to Tommy [Guerrero] that he and Mark [Gonzales] are huge fans of yours, especially your invert style. How did the guest deck for Krooked come about and do you have any plans for more of that stuff in the future, like the Dave Duncan Embassy guest deck?

Gibson:  I never talked to Mark, it was Jim Thiebaud who called me up and said, “Mark wants you to do a guest deck.”  So we talked, he sent the contract, I signed it, and then I got some decks and a big check six weeks later.  It was pretty easy and cool.

The Dave Duncan deck we did and we also did a Bill Danforth deck.  We have a great artist, Shane Munce who is a tattoo artist who does all of our stuff.  We have some people in mind for the next one, so I’m sure we’ll do more of them in the future.  

FPH:  You’ve seen the rise and fall and rise again of skateboarding, yet you’ve always seemed to follow your own path. If you had the chance, would you change anything or would you do things the same way?

Gibson:  I think about that.  When Bill Caster got sick, I wondered if I should go to a big company like Santa Cruz or go to a small Texas company like Zorlac.  Todd Prince told me that I should go to Zorlac and it turned out great.  That time was when the Big Boys, The Dicks and Butthole Surfers were all happening while Thrasher was just getting started.  We had our own world in Texas back then.  Neil Blender would get G&S to pay for him to fly down here and he’d just hang out for three weeks at a time.  He just liked what was happening here and he came down more than once.  Thrasher and the rest of the world were into what was happening down here which placed us on a global stage.  So yeah, I’d keep things the same.  It turned out great the way it all went down.

No matter what, Gibson proves that you can carve your own path by doing things your own way. By putting Texas on the map in the skateboarding world, John “Tex” Gibson deserves a thanks from every kid who rides in a park that’s located down here.  You can find his and other Embassy team riders’ decks here, and you can listen to Sugar Shack here.  Keep your eyes peeled out there for Gibson, who still skates regularly and spreads the Embassy Skateboards brand all over Texas.

But if they are a part of the LGBTQ community, that person with the big dreams and big ideas may be unable to get the education they need.

Current laws require students to provide a parental signature, and their parents’ tax information, until they are 24 — six years into their life as a legal, yet apparently not that free, adult.

Not only in Houston, but also across the country, students whose parents refuse to provide this information are left with few options. The only way around the law for most of these students is for them to declare themselves homeless, which is the only way they can be fully emancipated — even if they do have a place to lay their heads.

“In 2024, somehow, we still have to think about this,” says the president and founder of UH’s LGBTQ Alumni Association, Kevin Hamby. “Put yourself in their shoes, and imagine your own parents discriminating against you for something you can’t control. You want an education, you want to be successful, but you have to deny who you are to do it. What do you do?”

“You may be 24 years old, and your parents have kicked you out of the house because of who you are, and you can’t provide their income tax information. You’re stuck.”

According to its website, the University of Houston awards more than 8,000 degrees annually, and educates more than 40,000 students each year. Hamby cited statistics that indicate 80% of UH graduates remain in Houston to contribute their talents, with roughly 10% of those students identifying as LGBTQ.

“That’s why the statistics are so high when it comes to homeless youth. What you’re going to find out when you look into it is that a number of these students declaring themselves homeless — not just in Texas, but around the country — are LGBTQ youth.”

As one of the few universities in the country with a full-service LGBTQ Resource Center — run by alumni trained to identify those in need — the University of Houston is able to offer assistance. The LGBTQ offshoot of the Alliance is alumni-run, providing both tuition assistance and emergency funding in a two-pronged approach. Younger and older alumni are able to identify LGBTQ students in need, whether those may be long-term needs (such as scholarships) or short-term (such as housing or temporary living expenses). Prospective aid recipients must first go through the LGBTQ Resource Center and are assigned a caseworker to assist them in identifying their needs, ensuring that funds are disbursed properly.

Without having to choose between coming out and living an inauthentic life, students are better able to focus upon their studies. Financial help is also available to those across the entire LGBTQ spectrum.

“We like to say it’s about coming out as your true self, not ‘coming out of the closet,’ which people have always done,” says Hamby. “It’s not just about being gay or lesbian, it’s also about being bisexual, transgender, or queer. It’s about being your true self. We’re inclusive with the whole demographic.”

Financial assistance is not limited to tuition, either.

“We want to make sure that if a student needs housing for a month, we can fit the bill,” Hamby explains. “Tuition, food, whatever we can do to make sure that student’s education is not disrupted. If students can’t take care of their basic needs because of family biases, their education is disrupted.”

Hamby added an important message to students in need, and to the Houston community in general:

“We are here to help. And the students that we are helping are future voters, future politicians, future community leaders. We are here to help them through their education, through the process. We are here to help.”

If you’d like to help, or are a student in need of help, there are several upcoming events you can find at rainbowcoogs.com. The upcoming Red Dinner and associated kickoff and brunch are a great way to get involved and learn more about the organization, but you can also follow them on social media at the links provided on the website.

Senate Bill 361 stipulates that a transportation network company such as Uber “may not be regulated by a municipality, state agency, or other state or local entity.” Regulations include “requiring a license” and “imposing other requirements.” Essentially, Uber wants to operate on its own terms, without any municipal regulation, including Houston’s fingerprinting requirements. House Bill 100 would move permitting to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which not only has no office located in Houston, but has just one office in the entire state, inconveniently located in Austin where neither Uber or Lyft even operate. To expect an agency such as this to regulate the thousands of Texas Uber drivers — all living outside of the city it exists in — is untenable. The final day a state bill can either be approved or vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott is June 18, although movement on the bills is likely by late May.

Uber’s issues with Houston’s fingerprinting requirement are questionable at best. Arguments include that the requirement is unfair, unreliable and could discourage potential drivers. The reality is that the process takes about 10 minutes and costs around $40. Companies like Uber and Lyft insist that their own background checks, conducted by private contractors, are just as efficient, although law enforcement agencies would beg to differ.

Enter Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner last week. “Half the people who are coming to be drivers for Uber have some form of criminal record — one-half the people applying,” Turner said in reference to Houston Uber applicants. Uber’s public affairs lead for Texas, Trevor Theunissen, disputed the figure, stating that “the FBI fingerprinting database is widely reported to be inaccurate the majority of the time,” continuing that “we do have a fundamental disagreement on how to keep people safe.”

“We would continue to work with Mayor Turner, but our hope is that a statewide bill will pass this session so that we can stay in Houston,” Theunissen said. Once again, Uber is passively threatening to leave Houston unless the fingerprinting requirement is lifted — or legislation passes that will no longer give the city any say in regulations.

One of the best things about covering a music scene is meeting all of the interesting personalities that make it all up. When you get to know those within it, you should find a bevy of creative people who do more than just be in a band. In Houston it’s definitely no exception that most who make music have other creative endeavors that are worth looking into and exploring.  For LACE’s Josh Bosarge, music is just a small part of what he does.  With Calico Grounds, he’s published works by established artists like experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas, to his own writings alongside many others.  Bosarge proves that if you’re willing to dig deep into your music scene, those who make it up are usually a wealth of creativity who have more going on than those of the typical day to day world.  

Free Press Houston: You’re not technically from Houston, correct?  Do you think growing up in a small town shaped who you are today?

Josh Bosarge: That’s right. I’m from Needville, Texas, a small country town about 40 miles outside of Houston. I think so, in a way that I knew it wasn’t the place I was interested in spending my time or life. From early on, it had this kind of overwhelming feeling of “this isn’t home.” It was a kind of tight-knit high school football city centralized around a feed store. You could look around and see families who have been there for generations, the father ran the local business, so now they run the local business, and their child will take over after. Seemed very dull, and I used that feeling to make it a point to create and find my own little corner.

FPH:  You seem like a very tactile person, like someone who likes physical items over digital, would that be a fair assessment?

Bosarge: I would agree with that to an extent. I think the digital format is very important, especially for the punk community. It’s something I took for granted for a while for whatever reason. There is a certain comfort in physical formats to me. I love looking at cassettes on a rack, records on a shelf. I have begun minimizing recently, and trying to embrace having less. Maybe a decision I will regret later on, but I am a revolving door of starting things over.

FPH:  For those who don’t understand, what’s Calico Grounds and where does the name come from?

Bosarge: Calico Grounds is an independent publishing house I operate. It focuses on small edition runs of booklets, music, prints, and other pieces of work. As for the name, it honestly has no deep meaning. Wish I had a better story. Just something that came into my head one day on a long drive.

FPH:  What made you decide to start it up and how long has it been a thing?

Bosarge: I was writing quite a bit and John Baldwin, while working at Domy Books, which was like a second home to me, suggested releasing zines of my own. In 2024 I started to work with one of my closest friends Stephen Ashley and began running it as a curated press. I have continued Calico Grounds on my own since 2024. It’s given me the chance to select and feature artists and writers I enjoy, while getting to print their work with design I would be drawn to.

FPH:  As someone who publishes books and zines as well as cassettes, how do you decide who you’ll work with and the run of items produced?

Bosarge: My decision-making is up in the air. I’ve gotten to debut a few people who have never had any printed matter, and further the collection of some well known artists as well. When it comes down to it though, I publish things that I feel like I would like to see. If you look through my “discography” you’ll see that it varies. Everything winds up somehow being linked to the punk community. Sometimes I get the urge to release something completely out of left field, or challenge an artist to put out a format that they have never worked with, or convince someone who doesn’t write but is full of great stories to finally put pen to paper.

FPH:  Has there ever been an artist you approached to release something for but it just didn’t work out?  Do you have anything planned for release any time soon?

Bosarge: That happens often. For any number of reasons, sometimes ideas don’t pan out. I have never had a negative experience with an artist I have tried to work with. Sometimes the timing isn’t right. Sometimes missed connections lead to beautiful things. I was working on a collective book called “God Is Lonely In His Heavens.” It compiled many different writers into one release. Jonathan Shaw, Ross Farrar, Luc Rioual, Eric Paul, myself, and quite a few more including some Houston writers. There was a filmmaker I am a fan of submitting a story and he wound up becoming too busy for the project. A week before the deadline he got me in contact with Jonas Mekas. Jonas is an experimental filmmaker who started in the late ’40s/early ’50s who is very influential in the film world. Jonas and I would go on to publish “Letters, Etc.”, which is a collection of his personal letters to friends at the turn of the century. It’s very beautifully done and one of the releases I am the most proud of.

In the coming future I am toying around with some ideas. A booklet of selected lyrics from Juergen Gleue is on it’s way. Juergen is one half of one my favorite bands, 39 Clocks. This will mark the second time I have gotten to work with him. There are a few more zine/book ideas, as well as some musical releases, however I would like to move on to bigger and loftier things before I bring this thing to rest.

FPH:  You’re pretty heavily linked to the punk and post punk scene.  What’s the number one thing people misunderstand about punk and DIY culture?

Bosarge: This is a difficult question for me, because I feel the DIY and punk communities are becoming more “understood.” The lines between genres become less solid and makes it easier for people to explore. More people are grabbing a microphone for their first time and feeling empowered or oppressed enough to speak their opinion. There is something to learn from every performance.  I don’t feel like there is anything new I can add to the conversation.

FPH:  You sing in the band LACE, who will drop your proper full length with Seattle’s Iron Lung Records.  How did that come about?

Bosarge: A series of emails, really. Iron Lung is my favorite contemporary label, and were the first label we sent our demo to. Jensen Ward has been incredibly supportive and was the one to push for a full length. Their roster is unbelievable. Total Control, Diät, Gag, as well as one of the best punk bands I’ve heard this past year, Acrylics. They liked us enough to work with us, which of course is great. It’s very exciting and can’t wait for everyone to hear the LP.

FPH:  You seem to really get aesthetic better than most people I meet in music, so much so, that I know a flyer is for a LACE show before I read it.  Do you think the fact that you publish things is how you seem to get how something should look better than most?

Bosarge: Thank you very much. I’m not sure what it is. I’ve always been a sucker for design, and I’m heavily influenced by old New Directions or Grove Press book covers, because I think it sets a certain mood. Nothing I design is incredibly original, but I would rather create something that I would like to see. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the art of DIY hardcore flyers. Things that are handdrawn to give a nod to the punk community of the past. It’s great, and there are plenty of people out there doing it now and doing a great job of it. I think the aesthetic we use represents us well though.

FPH:  I know you’re a big Alan Vega fan, do you think people would be shocked to find out that you’re into him?

Bosarge: I would hope not! I hope the influence is plain to see. Alan Vega’s impact on me has been tremendous. He exuded this confidence and intensity that I could only ever dream of. I would watch videos of Suicide performances, and Alan is on stage in a shiny sequined coat or some leather jacket snarling like a caged animal. I love it. One of the smartest and most innovative characters in the music world. His death took a real toll on me. I think people would be more ‘shocked’ by my other influences I could cite. Ask me about my love of Tiny Tim some time.

Bosarge definitely proves that Houston’s music world is made up of creatives who take things further than just the notes of their songs.  You can find the releases from Calico Grounds here and the music of LACE here.  While visiting both, make sure to catch LACE at Summer Breeze Vol. 1 on June 3 through June 4 at Walter’s.  The multi-day punk fest features sets from Dress Code, Amygdala, Army and many more for the all ages event.

How do you wash your clothes? Depending on your income or social circle, you probably either wash them at home, or you do your laundry chores at a washeteria. The word “washeteria” is a Texan word combining words “wash” and “cafeteria.” If you’re unfamiliar with washeterias, let me enlighten you to the beauty and life lessons offered at the coin-laundry establishment — places of humanity’s most fresh and stank underwear.

Washeterias allow humans to coexist without filters. A friend of mine is the perfect human. Her Instagram is disgustingly creative, she makes her own clothes, has a great job, and her apartment is so well designed I puke a little when I walk in. I went to wash clothes with her one day at a washeteria off Main Street and noticed a pair of stained lavender panties resting gently on the folding table for all to see. I happily took a photo of the unsuspecting underwear and went over to my friend to show her my photographic masterpiece. She looked at me wide-eyed and then briskly walked over to the folding table and rushed back with the panties to hide them in her laundry bag. The stained cotton pantie, the masterpiece, was hers.

In that moment I realized I had forgotten that everyone has shit-stained undies — or something-stained somethings. The washeteria consistently reminds us of this. People put bleach in the washer, litter on the floor, and leave unspeakable residues in unexplainable places, but somehow we all leave with clean clothes. We’ve decided humanity is alright in washeterias, that things may not be perfect, but we’re going to sit ourselves down on the hard plastic chairs and just be there for awhile.

The washeteria exists to give you time to explore and be present, and Houston’s establishments are quite accommodating. A washeteria in Chinatown can loosen you up in a massage chair, or entertain you with arcade games and questionable bulletin board posts, while a washeteria in Montrose can brighten up your life with neon lights, community art, and strangely attractive young people. If you don’t like people, have no fear. No one actually expects you to talk to them. I actually prefer washeterias in Northwest Houston where no one speaks English.

Take your time to absorb your surroundings in the washeteria. Observe the different species of washing and drying technologies: the stoic stainless-steel Dexter, the seasoned white Speed Queen, and the prehistoric off-white Greenwald whose gaping black void might suck you up and spit you out somewhere out in the ether. Listen to the jingling of quarters, swish swashing of soapsuds, and people talking nearby. This is what it’s like to coexist, to share.

There aren’t many places nowadays where people can go to cooperate with their neighbors. Besides the trendy bars and coffee shops, the washeteria doesn’t discriminate. At the washeteria you are just as good as anyone else with a pocketful of quarters and the true makeup of our communities is allowed to show itself. At the washeteria we can learn to appreciate our surroundings or simply take things as they are. In socially and politically turbulent times like these, we ought to slow down for a second and wash our clothes together. Who knows what we will learn, who knows what we will smell, and who knows who actually has the stankiest undies in the neighborhood. I think if we can learn to get along in washeterias and practice coexisting with each other, we Americans might turn out alright.