 Sat, Oct 16, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| View of Royal Motel down driveway, nighttime. The two lights you see on are us and Shirtless Pete, who turned out to be a harmless-enough Romanian immigrant who was currently living there and working in construction (stucco work, to be precise). | Main room in our motel, my bed and TV. Channel 4 was complimentary adult videos, which I left on all night, to wake up at random times and see Euro studs, hairy MILFs, and all kinds of unlikely scenarios played out lustily before me. | View of alien oil-refining pods, shot over roof of Big S. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| More from the same place, just north of the River and south of Gonzales (I think). | First shot of the bridge we took south over Big Miss, towards Donaldsville. | These bridges are quite remarkable in the landscape, all seemed inordinately large and long. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Another alien oil-refining place in the distance, they were everywhere in this area of Louisiana. | Closer view of the same. | That goddamn bridge again, see how big/long they are? It's crazy. It's like they couldn't build it with more than a 2% grade or something, so the approaches have to be miles long... |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Headed south in search of swampland. | More bridgework. Very sturdy. | A quaint sight in this day and age, a 5 and dime. Probably a shitty craft store if it's still a Ben Franklin...that's what happened to all the ones I grew up with. BAD move. I used to buy all kinds of toys and clothes there. Now it stands vacant. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Strange old filling station or somesuch, Donaldsville (I think). | Foti Loans, D'ville, LA | Very southern housing, lots of porches and lots of houses built up on blocks for when Old Man River gets on a Rampage. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Maybe a general store or Feed-n-Seed at one time? | It's sometimes hard to tell if people still live in places like this, but most of them are inhabited. It's really beautiful and heartening. | "you are in the South. Home of lots of weird buildings, many in colors/textures you would've never imagined...what goes on there? Who knows. That's the beauty of it." |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Driving around in rural LA. | Most graves down here look like this, aboveground somehow, with huge concrete slabs over them. This must have something to do with the flooding. New Orleans' cemeteries are gorgeous and famous for this, this is just a poor smalltown example. | Mel's Club, probably a juke joint. Don't remember which town, but probably on highway 1 between Donaldsville and Plaquemine, La. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Fucking Daiquiris, what is it with that drink here? The "Po Boy" of alcoholic beverages in southern Louisiana. Every town had a place advertising them. | Men's Room at "Hey, Remember the Good Ol' Days Back in the 50s" Diner. These signs were actual vintage and not stamped metal signs of jukeboxes, hoop skirts and neon Elvis. Pretty poor food here too. Live and learn, we were starving. | Spirit Gas station has ambitious and striking paintjob on roof to make up for otherwise really shitty identity system. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Washaterias were almost as prevelant as Daiquiris and Po Boys. Good word. | Another imposing bridge | Red Rocket Fireworks |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Playboy Lounge...could've been straight out of Juke Joints | Camile's Cajun Cafe had a strong sense of signage | Freedom Fuel, Motherfucker! |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| When you're a Yankee queer, you forget that the cotton balls you buy at Walgreen's once grew out of a plant in a very similar form, and that there were whole fields full of the stuff. | More of those aboveground grave things, rural cemetery. | Old River Control Auxillary Structure, near Black Hawk, LA, Hwy 15 north. Not sure what this massive works project did. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Vidalia Laundry has seen better days. I love the South so much. | Hey, another massive bridge! | I took this just for the scale of the 3 quarters in the creepy hand. Condom machine, some bathroom in Natchez, MS. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Tue, Oct 19, 2004 |
| Ice machine. I like this kind of frosty type. | Holy shit, I didn't get any photos of the Natchez Trace Parkway, but picture a merely-hilly (and not mountainous) Blue Ridge Parkway. We came off it near Port Gibson and found this insane landscape from another world. | Every surface was covered with this creeping vine stuff, from the ground to the trees and telephone poles. I wanted to jump into it and swim through, it was so incredible. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| Draplin in front of a slice of this magic world. | Teddy Bears Gas Station, Onward, MS. This place had a historical marker about Teddy Rooselvelt not shooting a cute bear while hunting here, claims it's the birthplace of the term Teddy Bear. Nice old country store. | Hot Food and Ice. Masterful spacing of this type got us to pull off the highway and stop, so mission accomplished. Well done. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
| This is what it looked like around the intersection of 14 and 1 in east Mississippi. We wondered if it was around here that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads. It was that kind of terrain. | An old building that seems to have fallen by the wayside, where 14 meets 1. Wonder what it was in its heyday... | Self-portrait in mirror or Big S while waiting for Draplin to check into our Internet-ready Best Western, Greenville, MS. |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Sun, Oct 17, 2004 |
 Mon, Oct 18, 2004 |
| Quick as a Wink Cleaners, Greenville, MS. | Pleasing color combo, bathroom of our Chinese restaurant (Hunan Somethingorother), Greenville. | Literacy is not taken lightly in these parts. Our hotel, Greenville. At least they had a pool, which I swam in while Draplin worked in the hotel room. |
 Mon, Oct 18, 2004 |
 Mon, Oct 18, 2004 |
 Mon, Oct 18, 2004 |
| Colonial Inn had me at the sign. Love the color and the cotton, if not the dumb but earnest type. | Fros Top USA, Greenville. I've seen this rotating rootbeer sign before, there was a similar place outside Minneapolis, north along the Wisconsin border somewhere. | Cinema 1-82, Greenville. I wonder if 82 is the year they put it in, and it boasts one screen? Looking pretty rough regardless, but nice sign. |