Charles Barkley Loves This Town

Houston. Houston is the most schizophrenic city in the nation. Nuzzling the bottom of the bible belt, it houses the earth's largest non-denominational church and it's Charles Barkley's "strip club capital of the world." H-Town has more strip clubs AND churches per capita than any other major U.S. city. We don't have the numbers on that but it sure feels that way. Not that we'd mind either individually--though the churches are a bit much and if we had daughters, we'd have to take that whole Chris Rock "keep my daughter of the pole" mantra to the next level.

But does anyone outside of Houston know what happened to the Compaq Center (or The Summit as we slightly older ones knew it--was there a better arena name than that?), former home to the Rockets, Comets, Aeros, Hotshots and Thunderbears?

It's the new Lakewood Mega Church -- all 16,285 seats.

And of course, no more than 6 minutes and 3.5 miles away is Houston's largest nudie bar, Treasures, which boasts over a 150 girls working on a busy night. And no more than 2 miles and 5 minutes away is H-town's "classiest" strip joint, The Men's Club, where you'll see all your favorite pro athletes. Train reports former Rockets, Stevie Franchise and Cuttino Mobley, used to frequent the free lunch time buffet. And, fittingly, the website loops choral music.

So how does this explain the Rockets' record or their habitually sluggish starts at home We think we know, but we're not quite sure, and maybe we really don't want to know. But it sucks.