Pegleg Starfish

As you may know, T and I went to the Art Car Parade in downtown Houston this Saturday.  You can find some more information about it and articles written by real writers on Houston’s newspaper website:  www.chron.com.

But-I’ll give you a little review of the event.  First of all, I’m so glad that we decided to go.  T is still feeling kinda crappy from the vaccinations he got a couple weeks ago.  And it was about 95 degrees and humid out.  But I drug him along and made him enjoy himself.  We drove the 15 miles to the parade destination, found a parking spot (for $5) and headed to the parade.  We can’t do anything like this without getting in at least 5 arguments about what to bring, where to park, where to sit, etc.  I suggested that we bring along our handy fold up chairs.  It’s a parade, duh.  But T didn’t think that was necessary.  He said, “That’s why there’s a ground.”  First of all that doesn’t make much sense, and secondly we didn’t bring a blanket or towel to put on the ground to sit on.  Ok…fine, we will sit on the ground.  As we were walking to the parade we were surrounded by people carrying chairs.  That made me furious.  Once we got to the parade location we roamed up and down the parade path to check out the scene.  It’s all about the scene when you’re doing cool-City stuff.  There were food stands.  We bought two hot dogs, two bottles of water and a Diet Coke.  I also bought a T-shirt.  What’s an event without a commemorative t-shirt?  Did I mention that it was 98 degrees out?  After scoping out the scene, we looked for an appropriate spot to sit to watch the parade.  Then we argued about which side of the road to sit on.  We sat down on the curb and ate our hot dogs.  Then T got this disgusted look on his face and stood up and said, “Whoa, we can’t sit here!.”  Before I knew it, he was long gone.  I looked down to see that I was sitting almost directly on an army of ants.  I’m assuming they were fire ants.  So we moved to a new locale.  We found a spot under a tree, thank god.  But we did end up standing the whole time.  Like three hours!  Did I mention that it was 100 degrees!?  I took pictures because I seem to be the only one of us who is capable of taking decent pictures.  I took lots of pictures. 

There were about 250+ cars in the parade.  Although some of the entries were golf carts and bikes that were decorated.  Here’s a little entry from the all knowing Wikipedia that explains in boring, generic terms what the Art Car Parade is all about:

The Houston Art Car Parade is a yearly event in Houston, Texas, featuring a display of all types of rolling art. The first and largest Art Car Parade in the world, at any given parade you will see cars, bicycles, motorcycles, roller-skaters, and many other types of motorized and human-powered vehicles all decorated in various themes. There are also classic cars, lowriders, and various other highly modified roadworthy vehicles. The parade has been a Houston tradition since 1988 where 40 decorated vehicles were featured during the Houston International Festival. The first art car parade took place on May 14, 1986, when 11 vehicles participated in a parade down Montrose Boulevard. In recent years, the parade has been held on Allen Parkway.^[1][2] The 2004 parade featured 250 entries observed by a live audience of over 100,000 people. There were over 260 entries in the 2006 parade. The 2007 Parade featured 282 entries.

Wow, that was dull.  I’m sorry.  There were lots of “characters” there as T’s sister Amanda would say.  And by characters, I mean artsy-fartsy folks, hippies, drunks, musicians, roller-derby chicks, etc.  It was just as much about people watching as it was about enjoying the cars.  It was an awesome event and I think we will go again next year.  And we will bring chairs. 

Some of the cars had funky, cool paint jobs:

Some had a bunch of singing bass and lobsters (this one was so funny):

Some were patriotic:

Some were confusing?

???????????

This is one of the coolest ones in the parade:

It looked like a bunch of scooters had been taken apart and then attached to a semi truck engine. 

If you want to see all of my pictures you can check them out on my facebook account.  I thank god for digital cameras whenever I go to an event like this.  Except I can’t find my other memory card, so I had to delete a few of the not so good ones. 

All in all, the Art Car Parade is something that you should fo sho check out if you are ever in the area during that particular time of year.  I am pretty sure that they do these Art Car Parades in other parts of the US. 

We loved it and didn’t die of heat exhaustion, close though.  Just try to convince your hard-headed boyfriend that it will be worth the trouble to bring chairs to sit in.  Unless, of course you like fire ants biting your butt.  Then by all means, sit on the ground.  That is why it’s there after all. 

On a sad and somewhat bizarre note:  the curator of the Art Car Parade and Museum was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver the morning after the parade.  Tom Jones, was the curator of the Houston Art Car museum was actally killed after a drunk hit a parked car.  The parked car pinned him and friend against the museum wall.  Him and his pals were sitting outside the museum when the accident happened.  His two friends are ok, but he died from internal injuries.  That’s so sad and crazy!   

J