Posted: 4 years ago

May 10, 2008: The Art Car Annual Parade. If you have never been to the Art Car parade celebration, you have missed one of the most enjoyable, crazy, fun, magical, well-crafted events that Houston shares with the world. It is the world because art cars come from all over: dragons with 50’ tails, giant insects, armadillos, cupcakes on wheels that spins as the one-person driver attempts to keep the dozen or so art car treats within the confines of the road, pro-trucks and anti-trucks (Abortion, War, Gay Marriage, Global Warming, Greening Energy, etc.), bands of all kinds on flatbeds pulled by gorillas, tigers, lions and giant fleas.  Each year now, lining Memorial Drive, stand over 100,000 local viewers while over a million others watch on television. It all started years ago with just a few really wonderfully-strange artists: Bob “Daddy-O” Wade, the Texas Kid and others. The Kid’s car was covered with pictures of himself and his family, “Daddy-O” drove the first “Bonnie and Clyde” Mobile (covered with real bullet holes), one young man drove a van covered with toy soldiers depicting the Civil War and one drove a pig car with wings. All they needed at the beginning was several six-packs of beer and a place to park for barbecue. Then comes Tom Jones as the curator of the Art Car Museum of Houston, a few friends who loved the Internet, and some others with lots of money who loved fun and the Art Car Parade of Houston began.

May 10, 2008: Later in the afternoon, after tucking in all the select art cars to rest in the Art Car Museum, Tom Jones and two friends sat in the driveway, well away from the highway, relaxing after several days of hard work. As the Houston paper wrote a week later, “Jones, 51, a Houston photographer and a curator at the Art Car Museum, died…when a suspected drunken driver” shot at high speed over some railroad tracks, lost control, hit two of the sitted men and “pinned him (Tom Jones) under a car.”

As his friend, Patrick Waugh, said, “I think God came down to Tom and said, ‘Hey man, you know you have to go sometime. But this Art Car thing you do I really dig. It makes me giggle. So I’ll let you pick your day.” These two friends had known each other for 30 plus years. “It’s poetic in a way. Look what he leaves us with: this great extended nuclear family.”

Jones’ eclectic interests earned him friends from all walks of life, such as the bikers who got to know him on his Harley, or the skaters who remembered him as one of Houston’s “Urban Animals,” or the photographers and Art Car artists he inspired.  The group that gathered on a grassy hill near the Museum could have been mistaken for those at a festival instead of a funeral. The breeze carried soap bubbles and the smell of grilling hot dogs. Costumed people milled around, some on skates. One old friend remembered, “The year he won the award in the Art Car Parade for political commentary. He dressed up as Newt Gingrich and sat in a chariot dragged by friends dressed as minimum-wage workers. One paraded as a pregnant fast-food restaurant employee.”

The Floaters, an irreverent rock band for which Jones was the frontman, played some of his favorite songs, or at least the ones they had practiced recently. After the band stopped playing, the Art Cars gave a long horn blast and proceeded down the boulevard, past Jones house. The motorcycles clustered together, and the skaters wove in between cars covered in stickers, fur or wood. Jones’ father, Larry (who came to Houston for this event) remarked, “It’s a little overwhelming to realize that your son had such an impact. He went out in his full prime, and I want to remember him that way.”

So will all of Houston.  Somewhere, Tom Jones might giggle, “Death can be fun…for the living! Wait, that is a great idea for an art car.”

 Note: for a video and photo gallery of the procession, go to: www.chron.com.

Note: much of the description and dialogue was taken from Jennifer Latson's article in the Houston Cronicle, called "Hundreds bid farewell to Art Car curator." Type this in at the above website if you wish to see the video.