Posted 3/17/2005 05:41:00 PM by Douglas

Houston's famed beer can house gets a shot in the arm.

Nothing is as forgettable as yesterday's beer can.

But to John Milkovisch, Houston's front-yard philosopher and beer drinker extraordinaire, the empties were handy shortcuts to home repair. Over two decades, the Southern Pacific upholsterer flattened and attached thousands of cans to his modest bungalow, stacked them into fences and strung them as garlands from his roof.

By the time Milkovisch died at 75 in 1988, his can-clad home was on its way to becoming a nationally celebrated folk-art site.

Efforts to restore Milkovisch's Beer Can House, which has suffered years of gradual decline, have moved into high gear with a $125,000 Houston Endowment grant to the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, which acquired the house in November 2001. "The Beer Can House represents the sort of idiosyncratic individualism that Houstonians and Texans' pride themselves on," Emily Todd, the endowment's grant officer, said Wednesday.

$125K to restore old beer cans to slap on the side of a house? Geez, do they know how much freakin' beer that would buy? Seriously, there are college kids about to sober up right now, and you're going to spend good money to buy antique Texas Pride cans to put on this guy's roof? Priorities, folks.

I can't believe the Chronicle would run this story without a picture (who am I kidding? Of course they would: they suck), so here's my very own crappy picture of the house, in all its pop-top glory: