Texas Freeway signs. Driving on an elevated section of I-35 just north of downtown, there was a sign for a massage parlor: "Le Femme Massage", most curious if you could read French 'cause the sign translates, more or less, into "he-woman". Either the guy who owned Le Femme Massage didn't speak French or else he was a few years ahead of his time, anticipating an influx of tranny hookers from Santa Monica Blvd. I'm guessing it was probably the former.

Down in Killeen there was a titty bar called "The Sheik". The guy who painted the sign wasn't too sure how to spell the word sheik so he hedged his bets and spelled it differently on all four exterior walls. I guess he didn't have access to a dictionary.

Downtown Houston, another stretch of elevated freeway, car dealership advertising that their prices are crazy low. The sign says, in huge letters: "Owner Has Brain Damage!" I was literally minded back then. I just about drove off the ramp when I saw that sign. I felt bad for the guy.

Houston was a crazy town. The maniacs who built that city were lunatic wild-catters who staked their last dollar on some oil well, and it showed. Nouveau riche Wild West with suddenly acquired delusions of class. The maniacs looked to New York for tips on how to be cosmopolitan, and thus a bunch of guys who personally favored clown paintings, pro wrestling and rodeo decided they needed to get themselves "an opry, a fillermonic, and some moo-zeeyums".

It was a city of great contradiction, a town where anything goes populated by some of the most intolerant people anywhere outside of Waco. In all of America then there were maybe 4 openly gay areas - LA's West Hollywood, the Village in New York, maybe all of San Francisco, and, surprisingly enough, the Montrose District in Houston.

There were limits, however, to Houston's tolerance of fags.

Fag bashing was a popular sport in Houston. It didn't matter what your sexuality was - if you were a guy in Montrose you were subject to a fag bashing. Every guy I know down there, even folks from out of town just there to see a show, wound up getting beaten up at some point. It didn't matter if you were making out with your girlfriend at the time. Houstonians did not have a very clear concept about what exactly constituted homosexuality. All they knew is they hated it.

I often wondered if mobs of marauding fag bashers ever wound about accidentally bashing each other. Nothing seemed gayer to me than a good old fashioned sports oriented male bonding experience like a fag bashing trip to the Montrose District. How could they not mistake each other for gays?

You ever notice how the ultimate All American he-man is a leather fag?

A law passed in Houston without any fanfare that made it illegal to discriminate against people for any reason including race, gender, marital status, and sexual preference. When Houstonians realized they'd inadvertently made it illegal to discriminate against fags there was an uproar, and a referendum was placed on the ballot to amend that part of the law.

I was down in Houston the weekend before the vote. My girlfriend and I were in a Kips Big Boy having Sunday brunch. There was a line outside the door stretching down the block, people waiting for tables, but every table around us was empty. My girlfirend had short hair, small tits and dressed in baggy proto skater chick style. They mistook her for a boy and thought we were gay. Nobody would sit near us. We had a languorous breakfast, left no tip and stepped outside to face a hostile crowd of redneck families. It looked like a good old fashioned fun-for-the-whole-family fag-bashing was gonna take place right out there on the sidewalk in front of the Kip's Big Boy on the Lord's Day. My girlfriend did what she usually did when faced with these situations. She sneered and flashed ïem her tits. They were stupefied. We sneered some more, spat on the ground and swaggered off. The families all stood speechless, jaws gaping, bodies frozen while their brains went into overdrive trying to make sense out of what they'd just seen.

Despite our little protest, the amendment passed the next day and Houston became the first city in America to officially legalize discrimination against gays.

They'd already tried another approach. This was around the time the movie Cruising had come out, and Houstonians had come to live in fear of, I dunno, marauding bands of leather queens or something, so they'd outlawed spiked and studded belts and bracelets as a safety hazard, even though it was still legal to carry a gun on the street as long as it wasn't concealed. This meant us punk rocker kids were in danger of being arrested down in Houston as a menace to public safety for the way we dressed.

Nowadays you can buy those studded belts at Walmart.

My, how times change.