I saw The Darjeeling Limited yesterday. I liked it. I've been an unapologetic Wes Anderson fan since the first time I saw Rushmore. I know his faults, and artistically they don't bother me. I like that his movies are neatly esoteric in plot and characterization. They're organized the way my computers are: my folders are all color-coded, my writing and web projects are all organized by type and project, and the contents of most of the folders are incomplete, abandoned, and even forgotten.
I read this quote in the Guardian yesterday:
Anderson was born and raised in Houston, though he remains the most unlikely-looking Texan I’ve ever met. “Yeah, I’ve never really seen myself as a Texan,” he says. “I mean, I lived there for the first 20 years of my life and all. But even then I always wanted to live in New York, and probably secretly identified myself as a New Yorker.” As a child he would pretend he was rich, sketching Hampton mansions and European chateaus and then pretending that he lived in them. He is a very Gatsby-esque creature; a callow westerner remade as the classic east-coast sophisticate.And I vomited a little in my mouth. And I smirked a little because they called him "Gatsby-esque", which is pretty dick.
Part of me understands why people say 'Fuck Houston' in their heads, and move to New York or LA. Houston can be ugly, unromantic, and like Seth said, make "every other place seem exotic." But the bigger part of me, the part of me strapped to rap music and the Orange Show, says fuck you for not giving Houston respect for what it is. Houston may be a city wrapped in cold urban banality and hot shitty weather, but the culture and artists that exist in this town are not irrelevant or deserving of marginalization. This city is like a solid gold turd at the bottom of an outhouse– you may feel awkward or disgusting picking it up out of the pot, but you're an asshole if you let it just sit there.
Since I don't know Wes Anderson, I can't completely tell his Howard Hughes ass to fuck-off. He's not really shitting on Houston. And, to be honest, if I had only lived in this city for my first twenty years, I'd probably have a different opinion. It's been the last five years of my life that have shaped my opinion of where I live.
I think the only point I want to make here is that you shouldn't forget to go home once in a while, even if it's awkward. Don't forget about where you spent that first twenty years of your life. And don't abandon your home to the asshole people that pushed you out as a kid in the first place. Your hometown, should you make it in one of America's two 'real' cities, needs big profile artists like you to come back help it grow. Houston needs people with the money and artistic ability and care to help my kids and the kids of assholes. Kids need a place to go and learn non-asshole things.
I read recently a section in a book that took place in Texas where the author says something like (and I'm paraphrasing because the book is at home) "why should I live in a state where 75% of the population votes against gay marriage?"
People forget that they can vote with how and where they live. They can change things by just existing in a community. Without that 25% (nearly all of which came from cities) this state would be a complete piece of shit, and people like me and most of the people that blog here wouldn't exist.
If you spend time making art in a city, you will help change attitudes about art and what is accepted. You will help people accept new ideas, and grow that 25% into 35% or whatever percentage, even 1% more is okay. This is important.
The 25% of non-assholes in this state are important, and it is important that they do not abandon Texas for some place that is completely accepting of non-asshole ideas. Those places have been won already, and they have already been won too much.
It's annoying to see people that could potentially fill our little cup of a community piss into someone else's forty-gallon drum.
And yes, I'm an asshole for posting the picture of Natalie Portman nude.
