This should seriously be filed under the WTF??? category. The Here and Now version of Monopoly was released today featuring cities from around the country as spots on the Monopoly board. Houston was middle of the pack in basically the same spot and cost as Miami’s South Beach and Seattle.
Houston is represented by the Johnson Space Center with other landmarks such as Wrigley Field and The White House representing various cities throughout the US.
We faired MUCH better than Dallas not surprisngly in the vote of nearly 3.5 million online visitors.
What really struck me, however, was this quote from the Chron story…
Johnson Space Center, with 79 percent of the online vote, beat out the Museum District and Kemah Boardwalk to represent Houston.
Are my eyes deceiving me? Were the three choices for what would represent our city the Space Center, the Museum District and the freaking Kemah Boardwalk???
What in the name of Tillman Fertita is going on?
First, and maybe I’m missing something, isn’t the Kemah Boardwalk in…er…Kemah? Second, what does an over-commercialized master planned batch of restaurants and amusement park rides on the waterfront have to do with Houston, exactly? Oh, that’s right, nothing!
I don’t know if Fertita managed to buy Kemah’s name onto the list like he bought the right to abuse tigers, land helicopters dangerously close to the Pierce Elevated and generally pollute the Houston skyline at his Acquarium restaurant downtown, but the idea the the boardwalk has any place on the list of things most representative of Houston tells me that if a lot of money didn’t pass hands to make this happen, the crack pipe must have.
I can think of 50 Houston landmarks that better represent Houston than Landryland. Hell, my left pinky toe would make a better representative than the boardwalk. It might not place in the top 50 like my right pinky toe, but it’s better than Kemah.
And this isn’t to say I don’t think Kemah is a bad place or the boardwalk isn’t an interesting diversion. But, answer me this…how does the Kemah Boardwalk make it onto a list of the potential landmarks for Monopoly and Astroworld get bulldozed into oblivion?
Don’t have an answer? Me either.