Houston News Blog

​Enron is coming to Broadway after earning raves in London. Not the company, which pretty much stopped earning raves the second its slimy workings were exposed, but Enron the theatrical production, which is described as a "highly theatrical, music-infused new play."

Two cast members have been announced for the Broadway production; you may not know them if you're not into the theater.

Stephen Kunken, who played James Reston in the theatrical production of Frost/Nixon, will be Andy Fastow, producers announced today. Previously announced, as Jeffrey Skilling, was Norbert Leo Butz, who played the Steve Martin role in the Broadway musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Whether that got him the Enron job or not is hard to tell.

There are rumors that John Larroquette will be in the cast, which is odd, because he never plays anyone with a hidden, selfish agenda.

Photo by Olivia Flores Alvarez

​The holidays are over (unless you count Valentine's Day), but the Administaff Holiday Balloon is still flying at Discovery Green. The balloon goes up in a controlled float, reaching as high as 35 stories and giving riders a 360 degree view of the city (we sure have a lot of parking lots, don't we?).

The balloon is silent (it's filled with helium, not hot air so there's no fire roaring over your head), and the ride exceptionally smooth. There's usually a line of waiting riders, especially during peak hours, so give yourself plenty of time. And be sure to call the balloon's weather line to check on flying conditions because foggy and windy conditions mean the whole operation is grounded.

Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays. Through February 28. For information, call 713-400-7336 or visit www.discoverygreen.com. $10 to $20.

For more photos from our balloon trip, check out our slideshow.

As we all know, Houston annually makes a serious run at being named the country's fattest city, apparently the only running most Houstonians do.

And a while back a national website ranked the intelligence of various big cities around the country and found us to be sadly lacking in smarts.

Which puts us two-thirds of the way towards the Animal House mantra above that says "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

But salvation is here!!! We're not drunks!!

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Yes, you read that headline correctly. Today the Texas Historical Commission announced that Eric Davis' petition to honor Houston blues icon Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins with an official state historical marker has been approved. Along with 243 others. Took them long enough.

"I am completely thrilled," says Davis. "I felt really good about its chances to be awarded, but you have to wait to be sure."

As a reward for his efforts, now Davis gets to wait some more. The historical commission has to review and approve the text he submitted for the marker, which he hopes will be erected on the property of Project Row Houses in Third Ward -- and near one of Hopkins' favorite bus stops -- as soon as September.

​State-run lotteries, as many have pointed out, are pretty much a tax on the mathematically impaired. You pays your money, you takes your (infinitesimal) chances at winning big.

Unless you're a phone technician from Katy, in which case you won a $144 million jackpot over the weekend.

The owner of the ticket hasn't come forward yet to claim the prize, but employees at the store that sold the ticket know who he is.

And since the store quickly became known, the idiots descended.

As the Houston Chronicle reports:

Eric Knobloch was hoping for a little residual luck when he bought a $50 scratch-off and some lottery tickets at the Short Stop Market in Katy Saturday afternoon.

After all, the store sold a lucky $144 million Mega Millions winner in Friday's drawing to one of its regular customers.

"I'm hoping that maybe lightning will strike twice," said Knobloch, 45, who came into the store with his wife.

Yes, Eric. That's why there's an ancient saying about lightning striking twice. Because it happens all the time.

​The American Kennel Club has put out its annual report listing the most popular breeds nationwide and in specific cities. As in most years, Houston generally mirrors the national trends.

The nation's most popular dogs:
1. Labrador Retriever
2. German Shepherd Dog
3. Yorkshire Terrier
4. Golden Retriever
5. Beagle

(No, we don't know why it's called a "German Shepherd Dog"; perhaps the AKC wanted to dispel any illusions that Americans were keeping actual German sheepherders as pets.)

Houston's most popular:
1. Labrador Retriever
2. Yorkshire Terrier
3. German Shepherd Dog
4. Bulldog
5. Boxer

"Houston's top dogs mimic the national trends for the most part," said AKC spokesperson Lisa Peterson. "However, the Beagle, the fifth-most popular breed in the nation, only ranks 17th among Houston dog owners."

Why hateth the lowly beagle? Five reasons why Houstonians should instead embrace it:

Photo by Daniel Kramer

​In case you haven't gotten your share of tragic news out of Haiti, a reliable Hair Balls source tells us there will be plenty more death and destruction within the next 30 months. And just who is this unimpeachable tipster? Why, none other than Jesus Christ Himself, aka Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda of Missouri City, aka the Antichrist.

His spokeswoman, Alex Poessy, sent us a video where Miranda warns that "Calamaties are coming to the Earth...islands, get ready."

Unfortunately, Miranda doesn't specify which islands, and exactly what "calamaties" will befall them. And while he has the power to prevent these events, Poessy said, he's merely following scripture by letting them occur. Which means that he's just fine with a bunch of babies dying. What an awesome dude to pray to!

"It's not that he wants to kill people," Poessy said, "it's that that's what's written."

As Miranda says in the video: "The foundations of the Earth are trembling. Theology doesn't understand -- no, because it's impossible that God did this. What's impossible?...He brings death, he gives life, he does as he wants on the face of the Earth.....What was it that passed by Haiti? An army of angels of destruction."

Per prophecy, the image of the beast will have power for 42 months, Poessey said. While many have interpreted "image of the beast" to mean "the devil," such is not the case, as the devil no longer exists. The beast actually means "second coming of Jesus," which is what all this earthquake business is about. So just hang on for two and a half more years, and then all will be swell.
 

​Earlier this week Hair Balls talked to Pastor David Grisham, a man of the cloth who was proclaiming the utterly reasonable, open-hearted and accepting gospel that the world should boycott Houston because we have a gay mayor. Oh, and there's a Planned Parenthood outlet mall here, or something.

Sadly, some Houstonians are a little more closed-minded than the good Pastor Grisham.

Boycott Boycott Houston has hit the Faceybooks, courtesy of Ed De La Garza, who is obviously on the express train to Hell.

"Personally, I like the fact Houston is open-minded. You should too," he says. "But we should remember that in the spirit of tolerance, we should understand these people. Understand that they're close-minded bigots."

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Eric Davis, whose application to erect a state historical marker for iconic Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins was approved by the Harris County Historical Commission in November, said today his campaign to raise money to pay for the marker reached its goal of $1,800 dollars last month.

"I'm just really pleased, and grateful, to everyone for helping me make this possible," Davis told our sister blog Rocks Off via email earlier today, singling out the Houston Blues Society, Jack Henderson and Dr. Roger Wood for their contributions. "Without very generous donations from them, it would have taken much longer to raise the necessary funds."

Davis says he will find out February 1 if the Texas State Historical Commission has approved his application, but people who raise the necessary funds "stand a much better chance" of success. Nearly 300 historical markers will be awarded this year, he added.

​The announcement came earlier today that the chief of the Houston Fire Department, Phil Boriskie, is resigning his post because of "my desire to return to the station and continue to serve in this great Department," according to his written statement.

Boriskie's sudden desire to return to the station, however, happened surprisingly soon after another unfortunate situation involving Jane Draycott, one of the women firefighters who made allegations of finding racist and sexist graffiti scrawled on their lockers at a fire station during the summer of last year.

According to Joseph Ahmad, an attorney who has represented the firefighter since she found the graffiti, Draycott returned to work last week -- the first time she's been back since summer -- where she was met by Boriskie and other firefighters.

"She went back expecting to do her job again," Ahmad tells Hair Balls. "She expected that there would be some type of meeting where the firefighters were going to be told that, 'Hey, Jane's coming back to work.'"

But after roll call was finished at the station, a firefighter stood up and read a letter that basically said "we don't trust you, we don't like you, we don't want you here," according to Ahmad. He added that there were other "harmful and hurtful" things said by other firefighters.

"The chief indicated that he didn't know [about the letter]," Ahmad says. "If that's the case, it seems to me that it's unfortunate that a firefighter would pull a stunt like that in front of his own fire chief and put his fire chief in that position."

Photo by Daniel Kramer

​If you think the folks in Haiti are having a rough time, just wait until Houstonians feel the economic effects of Pastor David Grisham's boycott against our city of sin. Launched just a few days ago, www.boycotthouston.com is Grisham's way of giving righteous Texans a chance to send a message to Houstonians that they have sinned by electing an openly gay mayor and by allowing a super-sized abortion clinic to be built here.

"The main reason for the boycott is simply because it's about the only way that people in the rest of the state of Texas -- outside of Houston -- can actually take a stand for righteousness in the city of Houston," Grisham tells Hair Balls. "Now, Jesus said that we were to preach the gospel through all the world, and that includes Houston, Texas."

This isn't Grisham's first anti-gay rodeo; he's also behind www.repentamarillo.com, which also deals with the sin of gay people being all gay and doing really gay things. His group, a chapter of RAVEN Ministries International, also protested that city's swingers' club. (No, it wasn't a gay swingers club, but swinging is apparently a sin, even if it's the old-fashioned hetero kind. But they also preached during a gay pride event on a park....basically, wherever there are a bunch of gay dudes, you're likely to find Grisham and his followers, which is in no way suggestive of anything at all).

​If you are going to donate money for Haitian earthquake victims, there are worse ways to do it than watching belly dancers, if you ask us.

Luckily, the folks at Avant Garden in Montrose think along those lines, too, so you can enjoy and help out at the same time.

Tonight there will be an Open Mic for singing and entertainment by those shimmering bellies, from 6:30 to midnight. A portion of the proceeds will go to help MercyCorps, already on the ground in Port-Au-Prince.

Specific Houston page for the MercyCorps drive is here.

​A group of marathon runners were kicked out and banned from the Chevron Marathon Expo for displaying material that was critical of the oil company, but one of the runners tells Hair Balls that the group is continuing as planned.

"We are still going to, at least try to, run the race on Sunday. We are completely undeterred," says Briana Cotter, a member of the Rainforest Action Network. "Chevron puts on the marathon so they can pretend like they care about the community, but the reality is that communities all over the world are suffering, and even dying, because of Chevron's behaviors."

The runners from Rainforest Action Network -- the main office is in San Francisco -- are participating in the marathon on behalf of Emergildo Crillo, an Ecuadorean man who they believe is dying, along with his family, from the billions of gallons of toxic sludge that has been allegedly dumped in the rainforest during the last three decades. Chevron is involved in a court battle in Ecuador because of the sludge.

Steven Karpas, the managing director of the Chevron marathon, wasn't immediately available for comment.

The problems started for the Rainforest group earlier today, when it was setting up a booth for the marathon's expo, an event that runs today and tomorrow. "There's a million causes that have tables that are trying to raise money through the marathon, and we thought we were just one of them," Cotter says.

According to Cotter, Karpas came over to the booth and said that "Chevron higher-ups were freaking out," and he told the group it had to leave immediately or be arrested.

Photos by euthman

​Sunday morning, 22,000 runners will depart from the George R. Brown Convention Center to traverse Houston on foot as part of the 2010 Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Half Marathon.

This year will be the largest and most popular marathon in Houston history. In 2009, the races sold out in a record 12 weeks, so this year marathon organizers added 4,000 additional slots. When registration opened in July 2009, it took a whopping 30 hours for both races to sell out entirely. The El Paso 5K sold out soon after. If one counts the 5K runners and the wheelchair athletes, more than 30,000 racers will be clogging the streets of Houston Sunday morning. (Check road closures here.)

What does this mean for you? If you aren't one of the 30,000 running Sunday, then you most likely know someone who is. And even if you don't, watching the marathon from the sidelines is one of the funnest, most inspirational, craziest events in Houston, on par with the Art Car Parade for spectacle.

The course takes runners of the half marathon from Downtown to 11th Street in the Heights, all the way south on Montrose to Richmond, then back up to Allen Parkway and into Downtown again. The full marathon course continues on to University Boulevard westward, winding through the Galleria area to Chimney Rock before turning east again for a grueling 8 miles along the straight-away of Memorial and Allen Parkway into downtown.

There is a neat program that allows spectators to get instant message and email updates via cell phone about a runner's position on the course, which is a good way to keep track of friends and loved ones as they race. Hair Balls has some suggestions for the best places to watch if you plan to cheer from the curb:

Objectum Sexuality from sergio on Vimeo.

Via Swamplot, we get this video, about a woman who really, really really likes a statue in Hermann Park.

It purports to be a documentary, complete with plummy British narrator, of someone with "object sexuality," a condition where people end up loving the Eiffel Tower or marrying the Berlin Wall.

The woman in the above video loves the Pioneer Memorial in Hermann Park (Motto: "Oh, that's what that thing is called?") She first rubs herself all over to a video of it, then cuddles with it in person.

Photo by Richard Connelly

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Photos by Lee Riner / Click here for a slideshow

​The Kemah Boardwalk has been hopping more than usual lately -- and in a weird way, some of it's because of Hurricane Ike ("You Bastard!")

It's not gawkers hoping to see debris everywhere, 16 months later. Although we did see a large, phallic-shaped edifice lying on its side, just off the shoreline. A one-story lighthouse knocked to the ground or misplaced personal massager? Someone needs to step forward.

Rather, it's gawkers piling aboard shuttle buses in one of the parking lots, endeavoring to catch a glimpse of a real-live Extreme Home Makeover.

Forget Joe the Plumber -- this family needs to run for President! Or at the very least, be upheld as the Americans to Emulate.

Larry and Melissa Beach and their 13 children applied to be one of the show's recipients of a brand-new house, built in a week by a couple hundred professionals and local volunteers. They were understandably crowded in their single family home, and Larry's wages as a CenterPoint lineman only went so far.

Then Ike hit, and since their house was flooded, they've been smushed into a tiny travel trailer on their property. Tough times got tougher, but that -- along with their body of good deeds (they've fostered more than 85 children, of whom they've adopted eight), a recommendation by the mayor and a lovely blend of photogenic looks and respectful humility -- pushed them over the top.

​Rounding out our earlier updates about last year's MasterMind winners is a report on the progress of the Fodice Foundation, a project started by Houston artists Katy Anderson and Patrick Medrano to save a crumbling East Texas schoolhouse and, eventually, turn it into a center for artists from all mediums.

Anderson and Medrano, who are married, were dumping loads of their own money into the project before winning the Houston Press award.

"Honestly, at that point, we used it for ourselves as artists," Anderson tell Hair Balls about the $2,000 MasterMind prize. "It was like, 'Oh, thank Jesus.' We used it to pay our bills and get back afloat."

Since winning the award, the foundation has secured ownership of the school building, located in tiny Fodice, Texas, settled by freed slaves after the Civil War, located about 45 miles northeast of Huntsville. The school held classes until 1960, "when desegregation caused students to be transferred to other area schools," according to the Press article from last year.

"Now we have to get up a fence to protect the school. There's nothing keeping people from entering the property or the building itself because all the doors have been taken," says Anderson, who explored the abandoned schoolhouse herself as a youngster growing up close to Fodice. "We're out there all the time, constantly checking up on it."

Photo courtesy Houston Aeros

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​If the Ike cat story was the feel-good item of the morning, here's your Debbie Downer special. Houston, and it's energy industry, is doomed, and we just might become a new Detroit, one expert says.

"So could Houston be replaced by Japanese consumer electronics firms? Yes, easily," says Dana Blankenhorn of SmartPlanet, who has tolled the death knell for us before.

Essentially, the energy industry thinks in outdated, slow ways -- much like automakers in Detroit. Somewhere out there, an inventor is going to perfect the technology that will harness wind, solar or tidal power; the oil-based energy industries will be SOL, and Houston will crumble like an overgrown Mayan city.

To prove there's all this innovation going on, his article features a photo of a cutting-edge scientist working on producing quantum dots. He does this work at Rice University, but that's apparently irrelevant.

​Earlier this week, Hair Balls reported on Hightower High School's Broadcast Academy, which, since winning a Houston Press MasterMind award last year, has continued to do great things. For another winner, things have taken a different turn. 

The Nova Arts Project, an alternative theater group, received a $2,000 award in last year's competition for introducing new audiences to live performances. But this summer, one of the co-founders of the group, Clinton Hopper, left Nova Arts and the theater industry.

"We've had some downtime since then as we try to figure out how to move forward, what are we doing next, how are we going to move on after his leaving," Amy Hopper, who started the group with Clinton and Jenni Rebecca Stephenson in 2005. "He did a lot to drive the company forward and drive the artistic vision of the company. We need to find our new vision."

After winning the MasterMind award, things were going well for Nova Arts, producing two shows by early summer. The first was "Going Dark," a play about two students at a school where kids can make their emotions manifest. Kind of like the X-Men, Hopper says. The other production was a one-man play called "Thom Pain," which received great reviews.

Because of another production, however, the group had to call the police.

 

Congratulations, Houston! After many years of moaning about our city having only two seasons -- summer and a slightly less hot summer -- you're finally getting that "winter" you always complained about never having. Those days of 90 percent humidity and 90 degree temperatures don't look so bad now, huh?

Remember to bundle up before you leave the house today, like these folks below that we captured braving the winds on the streets of downtown, and thank heaven you don't know the pains of real winter weather: the snot freezing inside your nose, your driveway and car being buried in snow, roads that ice over no matter how much sand is thrown on them or scraping a two-inch-thick layer of ice off windshield at 5 a.m. because you can't afford an automatic starter for your car.

Photos by Aaron M. Sprecher

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Photo by John Nova Lomax

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It's official -- Houston is a green city, and the rest of Texas is now catching on.

So while the EPA may or may not have "castrated" the Clean Air Act in Houston, at Pastor Ezell Simmons's Eighth Street Gospel Temple Church of God in Christ, the Green Gospel is ringing out loud and clear.

​For at least one winner of last year's Houston Press MasterMind Awards, the accolades continue.

The Hightower High School Broadcast Academy, which received a $2,000 prize in the Press's 2009 MasterMind contest, was recently awarded three separate grants that will help Ted Irving and his students keep doing projects that are, as we put it last year, "both technologically advanced and ethically impressive."

"I apply for a lot of these grants," Ted Irving, director of Hightower's Broadcast Academy, tells Hair Balls. "And I've been flopping on the grants until about two and a half years ago, and all of a sudden my lucked changed. We've been getting quite a few grants."

One grant came from the Sienna Plantation Community, a large subdivision in Fort Bend County, for a public service announcement titled, "Recycling for Teens," produced by Irving's students. That piece is part of a larger recycling campaign, where people donate things like old cell phones, mp3 players and digital cameras to the Broadcast Academy, which then recycles the stuff. The money funds two scholarships that are given to seniors graduating from the academy.

The academy also recieved $1,000 from the Kids in Need program and $800 from Target, which Irving will use to take his students to Houston's VT2 Studios and Channel 13.

"Every district in Texas, because of the economy, has had a drop in funding and they usually cut things like field trips," Irving says.

Photos by Paul Knight

The drive-in entrance to the old Sheraton-Lincoln Plaza at 711 Polk St.

​All our hopes for the old Sheraton-Lincoln Plaza in downtown ended with the New Year, because in 2009, the hotel -- the Beatles slept there during the band's one and only trip to Houston in 1965 -- was supposed to be renovated and re-opened as a luxury hotel. (Swamplot has some nice pictures from the hotel's heyday.)

According to a a 2007 story:

A downtown building vacant since 1988 will get a $100 million face-lift and be turned into an Omni luxury hotel. Songy Partners acquired the 28-story Sheraton-Lincoln Plaza tower at 711 Polk and Louisiana in a joint venture with Omni Hotels for $15 million. The redeveloped hotel will have about 450 suites, fine dining restaurants and more than 30,000 square feet of meeting space...

The renovations are scheduled to begin in late 2007, and the hotel is expected to be open by mid-2009.

More than two years later, it doesn't look like much work has been done at all.

"Omni is not involved in the project," Caryn Kboudi, a representative for Omni Hotels, told Hair Balls. "I believe Songy still is."

Kboudi said she didn't know exactly when during the last two years that Omni walked away from the project and added, "It probably wouldn't be something that I could communicate. We usually don't talk a lot about our deals and our development."

It's a great time to be looking for an apartment in Houston, assuming you have the money to do so.

O'Connor & Associates reports that vacancies are up and rents are down across Houston. November "marked the fourteenth consecutive for declining occupancy, while rents on both a per unit and per square foot basis fell over the previous period," the company said today. "During the fourteen-month slide, occupancy has declined approximately 3.5 percent, a trend that is sure to continue given the elevated under construction supply remaining."

The drop in rent was a little more surprising; the firm says it is unlikely to be a trend.

Apartments are giving out specials these days to attract renters, but the offers tend to be a month of free rent or no-deposit-necessary.

What ever happened to the glory days of apartment specials? When the enticing Gulfton Ghetto encouraged you to come with TV ads like this?


We've posted this ad before, but it deserves a closer study. The kind of study we gave to the Matt Houston intro.

Hair Balls was excited to learn that Kraft Foods (specifically Kraft Macaroni & Cheese) is a frontrunner in the race to sponsor the implosion of Texas Stadium. Actually, we were first awestruck to learn about it, because we didn't think you could sponsor the destruction of buildings unless you lived in a cave in Tora Bora. It got us thinking about what companies could sponsor the demolition of certain Houston buildings. So bust out some mac 'n cheese and take a look at our list. Please send your ideas our way...

The Savoy Hotel implosion, brought to you by Chivas Regal

A few months ago, when the city ordered an emergency demolition of part of this eyesore, Hair Balls was crestfallen. It seemed like we were just one step closer to having to demolish the building bearing the Savoy name. The building is close to 100 years old, and it's a shame its owners haven't restored it, or sold it to someone who would. It was once a fine hotel, and therefore, in its honor, it should be blown up while spectators sip a rich, refined Scotch from Chivas Regal.

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Photographs (c) Elizabeth Paul / All Rights Reserved

​Elizabeth Avedon has boxes full of treasure, yet unopened. Her dad was president of the Harris County Mounted Posse back in the day -- making him a bigwig in the rodeo -- and he kept a large amount of pictures from his stint. Pictures that show a young Houston on the edge of a boom. (Like the above photo..."Fur Storage": Meeting all your Houston fur-storage needs for the 51 weeks a year you require it.)

"My father used to bring the 'stars' to Texas like Roy Rogers, actors for Poncho and Cisco Kid, Annie Oakley, Lucille Ball, etc, so I have photos of my family or just myself with all of them," Avedon tells Hair Balls. "It wasn't his job, but I guess being from NY, he was good at PR."

​Hair Balls was able to check in by e-mail with Houstonian Private First Class Matthew Slayden, currently deployed to Baghdad with the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. Married, with a wife and kids at home, Slayden is scheduled to return stateside early next year. We got to ask him a little about his life in Baghdad.

Hair Balls: What's your typical day like this holiday season?

PFC Matthew Slayden: I wake up at about 8 a.m. and go to work. Some days are different than others but we always have work to do. I am a mechanic so most of my work consists of working on vehicles. We usually get off anywhere from 5 to 7 p.m. I then go eat dinner and try to play basketball. I then talk to my wife and kids for a couple of hours before I go to bed.

HB: What do you most miss about home? What here at home do you worry about?

Slayden: I miss my family, but my wife and two kids the most. They are my life and they keep me going when times are tough. I can't really say I worry about too much, my wife gets stuff done; the only thing I do worry about is them being in the house all by themselves.

HB: What do you want people here to know about the situation that soldiers face on a day-to-day basis in the Middle East?

Slayden: I would like people to know that a deployment is rough and it's not easy leaving everything you know, love or care about for a whole year.

HP: How have you changed since you've been deployed?

Slayden: I have changed in many ways, but the main way is that I learned to appreciate things a lot more now from seeing how people live over here. It will humble you.

​You may not have known it, but a war has been brewing for five years between the residents of the Robinhood Condominums and the owners/patrons/performers at Hans' Bierhaus, a bar with a big patio just outside Rice Village. Or, to hear Bierhaus owner Bill Cave tell is, it's not so much a war -- it's that the folks at his bar have been under unprovoked attack for this whole time.

So he says he's decided to file a lawsuit against every resident, because even if a particular resident didn't take an active part in the war, they all were complicit in the following: throwing eggs and roofing tacks; using a laser-sighted gun scope to train a red dot on various customers, thus freaking them out; throwing beer bottles and cans; and then, this past week, using sprinklers to douse performers and patrons alike. Of course, water and electric instruments are never a good mix.

"They have been tormenting us, basically, for the last five years," Cave tells Hair Balls, adding later, "it was just an immediate campaign of harassment against us....When I bought the place from the previous owners, I went over to them to try and talk to them and let them know what I had planned on doing -- that I was going to run off all the riff-raff and clean the bar up and have a pretty decent little place going next door -- they...shunned me. Didn't want to talk to me. Treated me like I was some kind of criminal or something."