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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, July 31, 2000
Culture collision: Corpus Christi, meet Hollywood
So OK: We here in Corpus Christi find ourselves enduring a rough patch: stagnant economy, governmental disarray, and a notable shortage of that wet stuff that used to come down from the sky . . .
But we can't allow ourselves to get all slack, sloppy and demoralized. This is no time to hunker in the bunker. We've got to throw our shoulders back, plaster a big, confident grin on our faces and regain the form that once made our metropolis the envy of . . . well, two or three area counties, anyway.
And what better way to do that than by extending a great big ol' South Texas welcome to our new friends from Hollywood?
Chances are you know that the Lexington Museum on the Bay, nee USS Lexington, a.k.a. The Blue Ghost, has been drafted into service as a set for "Pearl Harbor," a seriously big production by the redoubtable Jerry Bruckheimer, renowned for big, noisy movies with beautifully choreographed violence, mind-blowing stunts and cliff-hanging suspense.
Trouble is, though we know that such Hollywood A-list luminaries as actors Alec Baldwin and Ben Affleck are in our burg as I write (or are on their way here), this operation is shrouded in secrecy. It would make the guys who run Area 51 out in the New Mexico desert look like a bunch of pikers.
The message to locals hungering for a look at the principals is: Go away, boy. You bother us.
But that's OK. They're paying the freight; they're entitled to their privacy.
It does occur to me, though, that if Messrs. Baldwin, Affleck and their colleagues on either side of the camera have some spare time, they might venture forth now and again.
Should that prove the case, there are a few things they need to know.
To begin with, they will have noticed it's just the least little bit sultry here this time of year. Light clothing is Recommended. And since our visitors are presumably well-heeled, they might want to lay on some native bearers to see to it that they're never far from a generous supply of mineral water, sport drinks and iced lattes.
Oh, and about that funny old building disintegrating in the shadow of the north-bound Harbor Bridge on-ramp: Don't give it a thought. It used to have something to do with county government, but ever since its occupants moved to that swank, gold-mirrored pleasure dome on the bluff, the old pile has been evolving very, very slowly into a ruin. There is talk of importing kudzu vines to speed the process of picturesque deterioration, but for now the old courthouse is just . . . well . . . there.
In one respect, though, our visitors are definitely in luck: There's some pretty respectable (read: loud) nightlife downtown, should they ever care to avail themselves of it.
That would not have been the case had they visited us just a while back. Downtown Corpus Christi, stricken by the defection of the stores - and the action - to the malls, lingered for years in a kind of half-life that one observer likened, credibly, to downtown Beirut.
A modest revival began when antique dealers started renting some of that empty retail space; and that in turn generated synergy (a nice way of saying that bar operators, seeing a few bodies stirring in the area, began snapping up properties, sending most of the antique operations scattering like dry leaves before a tropical blast).
These days, a tropical blast is just what you can find in downtown CC. Tame by Hollywood standards, but it suits us OK.
Oh, and when our visitors wheel their rented Mercedes-Benzes and Lexii out onto the streets, they should not be fooled. We're not in Southern California's league when it comes to congested freeways, but I'd stack our suicidal/homicidal red-light runners and cell-phone geeks up against anybody's.
Finally, one other motoring note: Administering the uplifted-digit salute to the driver of a monster truck with a rifle in the rear window rack is Not Recommended.
That's about it, stranger: Mi casa es su casa. Have yourselves a larrupin' good time.
(Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772 or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com.)
Brooks Peterson
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