The Sole of Houston Returns

I went to a dance performance at MATCH in Midtown the other day, and while waiting for the show to start, I decided to peek into at Sig’s Lagoon right around the corner. Sig’s Lagoon one of the few record stores left in Houston (and certainly the funkiest). I wasn’t planning on buying anything—just killing time. Then I saw this:

John Nova Lomax was a local music writer who produced a series of very memorable accounts of taking epic walks along some of Houston’s longest streets. The series was called “The Sole of Houston”. Lomax died last May.

What Lomax realized is a truth that I think every pedestrian in Houston learns—there is a lot of Houston that can only be seen at three miles per hour. Things you drive by without noticing at 30 miles per hour. Combined with Lomax’s witty erudition and vast knowledge of Houston’s musical history (woven throughout these walks), “The Sole of Houston” was a classic piece of Houston newspaper writing. “The Sole of Houston” was published in The Houston Press between 2006 and 2010. Like a lot of not-very-literary cities, Houston’s greatest writers have been its newspapermen—and I count John Nova Lomax among them.

Houston, having few natural barriers, is not really organized on a grid. But there are lots of massive East-West boulevards and fewer North-South streets on any length. But over the course of 15 columns, Lomax covered pretty much all of the major thoroughfares in Houston that can be explored by pedestrians (so no freeways, which would have been both terrifying and boring).

Lomax and Beebe would meet up, take a bus out to the end of the line, and then walk back to town. It wasn’t always so straightforward (the bus trips themselves were memorable).

Lomax and Beebe would encounter various Houston characters they knew: Malcolm McDonald (described as “perhaps Houston’s all-time leader in getting 86’ed from bars”), a woman named Susan (“possibly my least favorite human on Earth”), musician Mike Haaga, a friend of Beebe’s who shared a few drinks with them in North Houston as they were walking the length of Airline as well as various barmaids of Lomax’s acquaintance. They also encountered hidden parts of Houston history. For example, while walking down Richmond—which Lomax describes as the cheeziest Houston street—the pair stumble across the mostly erased African American community of Piney Point near Richmond and Westpark. It barely exists as a memory in the minds of three random people gathered around a barbeque pit that Beebe and Lomax encountered while walking.

They travel with a transister radio and later, an iPod. They are constantly listening to KCOH, a black Urban talk station. Large chunks of the column are basically remembered transcriptions of insane call-in talk shows. Part of what “The Sole of Houston” was accomplishing was bringing unknown bits of Houston to the readership of the Houston Press, whom I assume was mostly white hipsterish Houstonians. So talking about KCOH was likewise eye-opening.

If you read my earlier post about Lomax, you will know that he died as a result of his alcoholism. When I first read these columns, his and Beebe’s constant drinking was amusing—the idea that if you were going to walk 15 miles, you needed lots of pit-stops. Knowing it killed him makes it a lot less amusing now. I must have laughed when I first read this (about their walk down the length of Richmond):

Beebe and I invented a drinking game—every time we saw a “z” used where an “s” should be, we had to do a shot of tequila. After we passed by “Smoke Dreamz”, “Mary’z Lebanese Food” and a shop peddling “grillz”, the little bottle was dry.

It’s a lot less funny now.

I was completely surprised to see this book. When Lomax was dying, I lamented the lack of a book collection of the “Sole of Houston.” Lomax’s father, John Lomax III, published it through his company Lomax Global Music. The book contains all the columns John Nova Lomax, additional writing by Beebe, and Beebe’s color photos. It is jam-packed with material. A press release enclosed with it tells us that it is available at Sig’s Lagoon, Cactus Music and Brazos Bookstore, or directly from Lomax III for $25. (Contact John Lomax III for details; lomax3@gmail.com.) As for Beebe, he is now a politician in Marfa. So after misspent younger days getting drunk with Lomax, he is now a contributing member of society. (He was always depicted as drinking less than Lomax in the columns.)

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