Perhaps I exaggerate the impetus behind this. I, a Christian, had been to many churches in the past, usually under duress, and waking up ass early on a Sunday to revisit them sounded vaguely unappealing. Dustin, however, could not have been more excited to go to church and find out what it was about Jesus that we all found so special.
And so we went to the Superchurch, to hear Joel Osteen, Superchristian. The Superchurch (not its official name) was the old Houston Rockets Arena, which had been converted into a state of the art facility for Christian worship. They’d filled the floor with pews and cut into the stands behind the basket to erect a stage. And not just any stage, but a freaking STAGE, featuring a working waterfall with strategically carved niches that allowed for the placement of both fog machines and a 25-man band. Kiss would have found it too be too much.
Look. I’m a Christian and like to worship in my own heathen way. But this, the whole Joel Osteen production, screamed SUPERCHRISTIAN ™ ®. Everything was bright and neat and shiny – especially the too-wide smiles of every attendee, features stretched creepily into huge grins, welcoming you with a hail-fellow-well-met and a hearty handshake and saying God Bless like their lives depended on it. This, of course, was an effort to marshal an unstoppable army of Superchristians. In between the manic Christians, the bright lights, the smoke machines, Christian rock, and Joel Osteen’s Supersmile, God almost was an afterthought, like an actor doing a cameo in an ill-advised remake of his show because he probably needs the money.
After the Superchurch, we went to the Astros game. Here is where we thought our press pass story would collapse like the flimsy deck of business cards it actually was. I mean, this was a major league baseball team, with professional PR people who are at the top of their games and have in all likelihood seen every Tom, Dick, and Harry try to weasel their way into the action.
Well, wouldn’t you know it. Seated happily in the Astros pressbox, our press passes worn proudly on our chests, we noshed on a terrific buffet and tried not to cheer. Moldman failed at this last one. It was a great game at what had formerly been Enron Field, becoming all the more memorable for our sighting of the GameDay guy – that wonderful person in every stadium responsible for entering the game info as it happens into the computer so all of us without television access at work or at school can unproductively while away happy hours following baseball on our computers.
Houston didn’t seem like that fun a city, so, after some conversation, we decided to get out of town and drive to Austin so we could have an extra night there. It was a good plan, although it was almost hindered by NavMan, our GPS system, which seemed to want to keep us in Houston or have us all die trying. Here is a short account about the NavMan from Dustin:
"If NavMan had been a person, Houston is where I would have shot it in the stomach and let it bleed to death. It kept sending us down one-way streets the wrong way, saying "Turn Left" when you could only "Turn Right." This prompted general havoc, confusion, honking, and last-minute turns. Not to mention the several close calls that almost turned into head-on collisions -- events that certainly would have put a damper on the day."
On our drive to Austin, we saw, and I’m not kidding, something called an “Oil City.” This was beautiful Luling, Texas, which was, as we imagine, clearly the inspiration for King of the Hill. Why, we even saw a propane store. Yup.
Austin is awesome, and we’ll have a full account of it tomorrow. We met with my little brother, currently studying at UT, who was nice enough to let us stay in his apartment even though we would not be appreciated by his cat. Yes, my little brother went through a brief period when he owned a cat. I know.
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