|
On April 15th, 2025 (Tax Day), I became a resident of the state of Texas. An hour north of Houston is a beautiful area named Lake Conroe with the cities of Willis to the northeast, Conroe to the southeast, and Montgomery south. Outside the city limits in Montgomery County, I decided to rent a house for 12 months with the intent of buying property and land over the next year in this area. My family fell in love with this area upon visiting back in November of 2024. Lake Conroe is a massive 22,000-acre lake just a few minutes west of Interstate 45. Created by damming the western fork of the San Jacinto River, Lake Conroe and the area that surrounds it is known for its outdoor activities and water sports. From our community, the upscale suburb of The Woodlands is a short ten-minute jaunt south down the freeway.
For many of my readers, you know that I have a deep-seated love for my native state of California. Being a political lightning rod often undeservedly so over the past decade, remaining in California became unsustainable for a couple about a decade from retirement. The biggest issue with California is not the arrogant liberals, the misguided politics, or the mind-numbing traffic. These are irritating factors that are inevitable if you live inside the state. The main problem with California is the cost of living. Making 100,000 dollars a year is just not enough if you want to buy a home and enjoy a slice of the American dream. Food prices have skyrocketed, gas prices are some of the highest in the nation, and buying a new home is next to impossible. This is why more people are on federal and state benefits inside California now than ever before. These price increases, especially on assets, are not completely the politicians’ fault. But nothing they have done no matter how good-natured the policy can stop inflation. Recently, the large utility that directly and indirectly employed my wife and I had to purge workers due to bad green energy investments that did not pay off in the way that was promised. With my job basically being eliminated in California, there was no longer any reason to stay. As my experience living in Texas continues to develop, I will have more opinions about the state in the future. But here are a couple of cost comparisons between California and Texas. Not everything in Texas is cheaper. When we left California, these were our expenses 2655: Rent for a 2 bedroom, 1200 plus square foot apartment. This includes 105 dollars for water and trash. 205: GEICO Car Insurance 190: Cubesmart Storage 250: Average Electricity with So Cal Edison 45: Average Gas Price with So Cal Gas 150: Spectrum 500 MB Internet (79.99) plus basic cable package (19.99) plus sports add-on (15). With taxes, this bill was almost 150 dollars a month. 65: Mint Mobile Pre-Pay Unlimited Plan for two phones Over 1000 dollars on food a month Over 500 dollars on gas a month averaging around 4.59 a gallon. Adding all this up, the total is 5060 estimated dollars spent a month. This does not include extra expenses like streaming and internet subscriptions, yearly expenses like car registration, and other “emergencies.” Adding in recreation and the amount taken by the government through payroll taxes, you must make 140,000 as a couple to be comfortable and contribute to a 401k bi-weekly. While my wife and I were able to accomplish this, saving money monthly became an increasingly difficult problem. Now, here are our expenses in Texas. 1500: Rent for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1665 square foot house 250: GEICO Car Insurance is 15 dollars higher than California, and we had to add 30 dollars of renter’s insurance, a new bill for our rental. 295: Average electricity bill through Entergy (A 45-dollar increase) 72: Frontier 2 GB Internet 31: Trash with Heritage Solutions 55: Washer and Dryer Rental, a new bill 65: Mint Mobile remains the same Food will be around 950 a month. Eating out is 10% cheaper but groceries are about the same as California. Gas will be about 300 a month averaging around 2.59 a gallon. We do not have a gas bill, water bill, or storage bill. The total so far is an estimated 3528 dollars a month. So, understanding the fact that we have saved over 1500 a month moving to Texas, can you really blame us? Next week, I will write about my journey down one of the most interesting US highways that dissects the middle of Texas, US 190. California (1974-2004, 2012-2025): Grew up and lived in Torrance and Redondo Beach until 1995, moved to Orange County and stayed till 2003, lived in the Palm Springs area until 2004 when we relocated to Phoenix. Came back to California in 2012 and lived in San Diego till 2017 and then we bought a condo in Murrieta where we lived until 2025. Arizona (2004-2012): Owned a home in the Avondale suburb of Phoenix from 2004-2011 until relocating back to California.
1 Comment
 Due to an incredibly busy schedule which will be easing soon (Information provided on my next post), I have been unable to mourn one of my favorite creatives, the innovative and unique film director David Lynch, who died four days before his 79th birthday in January. With his signature combed back 50s rockabilly hair and distinct directorial aesthetic, the loss of Lynch is a tragedy for the film making world. With the current state of the independent film industry, there will likely never be another filmmaker like him.
Becoming a massive fan of the Generation X filmmaking world that rose out of the 90s like a Phoenix during my high school days, I discovered Lynch as a junior in high school in 1990. The high school and college years are wonderful times of your life as your artistic tastes are first developed by the media, your cultural environment, and social peer pressure. A close friend of mine in high school, Chris, requested I spend the night, and we rented a few movies at THE WAREHOUSE. One of these was Lynch’s WILD AT HEART, his mixing of Southern Gothic stories and themes from the WIZARD OF OZ. The movie’s story is based off a novel written by Barry Gifford, but the film has its own unique artistic statement. Probably the one Lynch film that has a defined narrative (THE STRAIGHT STORY being the other), it revolves around the love story of Sailor played by Nicolas Cage and Lula played by Laura Dern, young, rebellious lovers looking to escape her domineering mother. The movie turns into a road trip film that ends in a burst of shocking violence. For me, I wasn’t sure what the hell I was watching. But it fascinated me. I also understood that a movie with these themes and imagery would never be played in my Catholic household as my parents were very sensitive to sexual and violent content in the media when I was a child. Then, the car accident scene occurs where our lovers come across Sherilyn Fenn, who has “survived” a car accident, and happens to be picking the large hole in her skull as she dies. The intensity and unintentional hilarity of it is shocking and quite emotional. Plus, this movie introduced me to another lifelong love, Chris Isaak, whose megahit WICKED GAME was first heard in this film before becoming a massive hit. The video linked above was the original that MTV played back in 1990. The later video with Chris wrestling with a stunning woman on the beach came later. Then there was the ending. Willem Dafoe’s Bobby Peru roping Sailor into a bank heist where his head met its unfortunate end with a shotgun. What the hell was I watching? And who is this, David Lynch? After this, I went back and watched some of his earlier work including the incredibly underrated original 1984 version of DUNE and BLUE VELVET, often called his magnum opus starring one of my favorite longtime actors known for playing crazy roles, Dennis Hopper. BLUE VELVET specifically is voyeuristic, erotic, and very disturbing. With so many serious themes going on, the movie has no problem embracing the weird as Hopper’s Frank Booth forces Dean Stockwell’s Ben to lip sync IN DREAMS by Ray Orbison after Kyle Maclachlan and Isabella Rossellini’s characters are kidnapped. The scene has Hopper lip syncing and intensely glaring at Stockwell as he performs, and the scene would not be complete without a dancing man holding a snake in the background. After this film which should have won Best Picture in 1986, I was a David Lynch fan. But nothing could have prepared me for what came next. TWIN PEAKS is often credited with changing television back in 1990 when it first aired on network TV. MANY, MANY articles have been written about this groundbreaking show. The show for about a year was equivalent to an internet viral phenomenon. From 1990 to 1991, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” was everywhere in the entertainment zeitgeist. The show was discussed by adults at bowling Mondays or kids on lunch break at high school. For me, I did not discover it until later. Mainly because I was not much of a television watcher as a teenager (I focused on films). TWIN PEAKS did not come onto my radar until Lynch’s accompanying film, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME was released in 1992. One of my favorite films of all-time, FIRE WALK WITH ME is the prequel to the TV show that chronicles the last week of Laura Palmer’s life. Still to this day, this movie blows me away with its innovation, its inherent darkness, its representation of supernatural evil, and outright frank depictions of nudity. Sheryl Lee, who starred in this movie, deserved an Oscar nomination as this remains one of my favorite acting performances of all-time. So many iconic characters came out of this amazing television show and film including The Log Lady and The Little Man from Another Place. TWIN PEAKS was so massive that two books were released later, both of which I bought, just to analyze and understand the incredible world that Lynch and Mark Frost created. Laura Palmer’s murder scene at the hands of her possessed father (It is complicated) still disturbs me to this day. It is one of the most intense scenes ever put onto film. Than there is the murder scene in TWIN PEAKS that mirrors Laura’s in intensity where Lynch ends the next episode with the recognition of her death at a bar set to Julee Cruise’s haunting voice which has an incredible emotional impact, Then, there is the opening theme and credits which is just musical perfection written by Lynch’s longtime composer Angelo Badalamenti. And this was on network TV in 1990. After TWIN PEAKS, I would be forever in on David Lynch even if his movies never reached the intensity of that genius work of art. LOST HIGHWAY, THE STRAIGHT STORY and his best post-TWIN PEAKS work MULHOLLAND DRIVE followed. I even went back and completed his filmography watching his incredible first film ERASERHEAD and his last movie, INLAND EMPIRE, starring the wonderful Laura Dern. After 2006, Lynch would never make another feature film again. But he never left the cultural zeitgeist. Younger generations started discovering him. Lynch began doing Weather Reports on YouTube. Even Netflix hired him to direct a short film where he interrogates a monkey about a murder in WHAT DID JACK DO?. Lynch released two albums and created a comic strip in the 1980s, THE ANGRIEST DOG IN THE WORLD. He was involved in directing dozens of music videos. The best final moment of David Lynch’s career is when SHOWTIME decided to reboot TWIN PEAKS for one final season which aired in 2017. These 18 glorious episodes were a wonderful career summary of everything Lynch has done and a glorious send off. Twin Peaks ends with a cliff hanger that was intense and will never be resolved, the David Lynch way. And props for creating a character like Dougie or turning what was a dying David Bowie’s character Philip Jeffries into a talking tea kettle. The man was endlessly creative. Because of the silencing of this voice and the inevitability of death, the world feels like a darker force without Lynch inside of it. Rest in peace, you unique genius. |
AuthorEXPERT OF SOME Archives
April 2025
|
RSS Feed