Montrose Deserves Better

That PBS Montrose documentary last weekend sucked. Low budget is low budget, I understand, but if you're shooting architecture get out of the car. I guess I saw about fifteen minutes of it, because Ernie Manous wanted to pitch $65 copies of the DVDs to me and cut off the beginning of the show. Whatever, he's the narrator, so it's his voice either way. The cheap video gave the doc a burned-out look, appropriate for Texas in the summer, but not really complimentary.

It is cool to know that Cary Grant and Lyndon Johnson both lived in Montrose, but watching wrinkly hippies lament the end of the 60s is pretty weak. This doc is short on stories, thin on archival footage and almost sanitized of Montrose's famed seediness.

FYI, don't have the only people talking about buildings use the first person possessive. (My house has...) It seems like Ernie just knows some of the old gays in the neighborhood who wanted to bitch about townhomes and straight people moving in. Two of those old people are City Councilmember Sue Lovell and City Controller Annise Parker, who both exalt the neighborhood for its culture. Unfortunately all the culture Ernie could get was a couple of shots of goths at Numbers. Besides that there was a lady who just wanted to use "fluff" as a verb as many times as possible (which was hilarious) and an informative bit on the Montrose Clinic and outreach to gay seniors.

Anyone else want to make a better Montrose documentary? It wouldn't be too hard.


Here's a few better videos on Montrose flavor: