#286: Portlandia

Portland, OR

This is an oldie but goodie from the collection, gathered on the road with Balthrop, Alabama a few summers ago. Of course, to make this true to its Portlandia title, I feel like I'd have to add something to this image, something that's . . . missing. I know! Put a bird on it!

#21: Dublin Drive Time

D'Olier Street, Dublin

While I have slowly surrendered some of my Luddite ways over the past few years, I still like to bemoan what I call the YouTube-ization of everyday life. Very few things in life are worth filming, and still fewer worth re-watching. This does not stop legions of so-called smartphone-wielding urbanites from whipping out their cameras to capture even slightly unusual events with the express intent of posting the clip online as quickly as possible: some dude breakdancing in Grand Central Station, or else the breathtaking magical holiday subway car -- an antique subway train fully restored to its past glory -- that unexpectedly pulled up today at the West 4th Street stop to take me on a rickety, surreal short trip back through time before dropping me off, bewildered, at 2nd Avenue. (Intrigued, New Yorkers? You can find out when to catch the vintage train here.)

Each to one's own, but I can't help pity these video vultures a bit. It's like they're ordering the fast food version of important moments: quality is of no object, only quickness, only grabbiness -- things must be captured at all cost. There's nothing worse than going to a great show where your view of the stage is obstructed by dozens of eager hands wielding so-called smart phones over their heads, the very LIVE show you are trying to watch getting its soul collectively sucked up by so many people out to document the moment. Recently, I reveled in watching the comic John Oliver cheerfully berate an audience member who was filming Oliver's stand-up routine on his iPhone. "What?" Oliver demanded, interrupting his routine to face the bright blue glowing light in the audience. "Is now not good enough for you?"

I confess I've been tempted to do the same, particularly when it comes to places I love. There are few things that make me happier than wandering the streets of Dublin, and once or twice I've been so taken with the view from the quays that I've filmed the length of the Liffey and the parade of blurry strangers tromping over the Ha'Penny Bridge, just so I could take a piece of the experience home with me. The re-watching, alas, is a poor copy of the real moment, and I find that my sketches and notes, with all their messiness and flaws, capture the feel of city better. (And nothing beats the moment itself.)

But I have to change my view on this a little after finding something cool on the interwebz: an interactive YouTube clip that takes you on a drive through the streets of Dublin. Driving in Dublin is not something I have any particular wish to do (give me feet or bicycle wheels any day), so maybe that's the salvation: I have no romantic notions to be quashed. Anyway, I found a neat little clip that takes you past D'Olier Street, where you can just barely make out the location of today's number (on your far left at :29). To my delight, the meandering route then snakes around to College Green, where you can see the bookstore where I used to work at the end of the street at 1:06. There's a whole bunch of videos in the series, and as you're watching you can click on the screen and go to other clips, essentially taking yourself on a mini drive through the dear dirty city.

Inevitably, more than five minutes of this sort of play would probably lead me into a depression (poor copies make me long for the real thing), but I still think it's a pretty cool concept. Curious? Go ahead and take the drive yourself.

#72: The Big Texan

Amarillo, Texas

If you eat the entire 72 oz. steak at the Big Texan in Amarillo, Texas, the darn thing is free! There is, however, no prize for picking at the macaroni & cheese and side of string beans -- the vegetarian's sad (and oddly disappointing) consolation dish. We sailed out of that steak joint, grabbed some toothpicks, and hit the Mother Road running.

#75: Iceland Blue

Reykjavik, Iceland

So I took a trip to Iceland in August. I ate a chunk of 1,000-year-old ice, walked on a glacier, drove through lava fields, took pictures of horse skulls, and basically had my mind altered. When the dust settles around my writing projects and my deadlines slacken, I'll even get to write about it. In the meantime, these photos and this Reykjavik blue reminded me of a Georgia O'Keefe quote I saw on the wall when I went to the O'Keefe museum in New Mexico:

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way – things I had no words for.

I look at this shade of blue and it tells me more about Reykjavik and Iceland than anything in my travel journal. No doubt I'll try to blather on about it later on anyway, but it's good to know that when words fail, I can always return to the source.

#77: Union 77

Smithfield, Dublin

The iconography of this may not resonate in the same way with my Dublin friends, but to my American eye, this 77 immediately stood out. With its bright red-orange circle and cobalt numbers, it's a dead ringer for the Union 76 logo. Where I grew up, this giant orange orb at gas stations was as unmistakable an image as fast food's golden arches, a familiar and well-loved sight on road trips. (The best of them actually lit up and rotated.)

This was real ooh-ahh 1962 World's Fair technology, state-of-the-art stuff back then, and why anyone in the year 2011 still gets excited about a giant rotating orange ball is a little puzzling. But apparently I'm not alone. There's enough of a cult following that a "Save the 76 Ball" campaign made sure that ConocoPhillips (as they are now re-branded) donated a couple to museums. They even put up a few new rotating balls to wow the oh-so-jaded public -- who, frankly, are probably more concerned with paying 4 dollars a gallon for gas than they are about "saving" some dinky old orange sign.

I like this one quite a bit. It's like if the Union 76 logo ate a Pac Man, went to Smithfield, and found a nice, industrial gray wall to settle down with. I wish it luck in its future endeavors. Should anyone ever want to tear it down, they'll face some stiff opposition from the "Save the 77 Ball" campaign. While I probably won't get the Irish Georgian Society behind me, I can probably pull a couple strings at An Taisce. Those folks will object to anything.

#84: Green Mountain State

Florence, Vermont

#89: Oklahoma, O-K!

Oklahoma City, OK

My first photo from Oklahoma, y'all. I haven't given this state much love, but it's time to change all that. Who cares that neighboring Texas is home to the Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere? Oklahoma is home to the tallest spiral slide in America. And since it's AMERICA, that's real BIG.

But enough bragging. This brightly colored 89 comes from outside The Conservatory, this fun dive bar venue in Oklahoma City where we played on tour a couple of summers back and I think I lost about 8 decibels of hearing. (Give me a shout if they happen to turn up.) I do remember feeling pretty thrilled that outside the club, sandwiched in between Fox Valley Motors and the record shop, there it was on a rickety cracked sign for the club: our name in lights! Well worth it after driving past endless signs for hardware, liquor, and loans.

As for the record shop employees next door, all I can say is this: the kids are all right. I picked up a nice stack of Handsome Family, The Fall, and Kurt Weill CDs at The Conservatory, which is the last time I think I've done such an old-fashioned thing. Oklahoma brought that out in me, I guess.

My notes from our gig at The Conservatory are pretty brief, but I think you'll get the idea: "Venue a big concrete box w/ bright graffiti outside. Cheap theatre seats inside, a bar behind velvet rope, no soap in the bathrooms and free beer." Smells like tour to me.

#129: Ad Nauseum

East Village, NYC

One of the many things I loved about being in Iceland for a week was the refreshing lack of ads and billboards. The roads were beautifully unobstructed. The glaciers were vast and litter-free. Even Reykjavik, that pulsing urban center governed by a friendly anarcho-surrealist mayor, seemed to get on just fine without sticking up signs every few yards telling me what to buy and why I should buy it. Sure, there were a few tasteful ads in Keflavik airport for the clothing line 66 Degrees North, the models looking all ruddy and healthy in their fur-lined hoods and wind-proof jackets, but that was about it. When I stepped off the plane and realized I was no longer being ambushed with ads and bombarded by shouty visual clutter, I could feel my rods and cones actually start to unclench. Ten minutes on the road and I was in a prehistoric daydream. Even as a writer, it felt wonderful for a few days to escape from so much type.

Naturally, this unsullied condition is harder to replicate in America, where the billboard is king and crap is OK as long as it is keeps the wheels of capitalism greased. New York is so over-saturated with visual data as it is that I hardly even notice the billboards anymore. At every turn there are window displays, awnings, t-shirts, bumper stickers, flyers, menus, all vying for my attention. When I'm on my font-hunting expeditions, I naturally try to avoid the ads, treating them as one does the screaming subway preacher, going on my quiet way as if nothing at all were amiss. It takes some training. But it's possible.

That said, I must confess I cadged this #129 from a Sunkist ad, though I think it's been weathered beyond recognition. (Thanks, East Village! Keep up the good work.) So! We continue the number line both ad- and guilt-free. Now if only I could figure out why I'm feeling so thirsty...

#141: Santa Cruzin'

Santa Cruz, CA

We never did make it to the famed Santa Cruz Mystery Spot, but we had plenty of mysterious things to keep us busy on our stopover in Santa Cruz. We camped on a hill near an old hippie bus, sang songs around the campfire, and had temporary visions of living on our own commune till our need for wi-fi and bar fights took over and we hi-tailed it out of there on our motorcycles. Just kidding. We'd never get that excited about wi-fi. Today's number was taken from our gracious host Nick's mailbox, which was painted up real purty.

#142: Letters to Santa Monica

Los Angeles, CA

The only Santa I grew up knowing in the Midwest was the guy in the red fatsuit. California swiftly took care of these gaps in my awareness. I'm a cold-weather gal with more east coast than west in me -- not to mention a complexion more ghost than most -- so imagine my shock when I went to L.A. on tour with Balthrop, Alabama and it turned out to be, like, totally cool.

We took some time out of our west coast tour two summers ago to hit the Santa Monica beach, and fortunately for posterity, Miss Georgiana Starlington was on hand with her omnipresent video camera to capture our impressions of L.A. in her famous "What's Your Favorite Thing About..." series. Well, famous in our van, anyway. The wind was blowing sand in our faces and into the camera microphone that day, but I think the overdubs were really tastefully done.

The title of today's post comes from an über-catchy song composed by our banjo player, Cotton Tyler Guin, also known as Andrew Vladeck. We recorded it in DUMBO's own Saltlands studio this summer and one of these days y'all will get to snap your fingers and sing along to it. Along with that cool new album we've been threatening about for awhile.

#152: The Full Vermonty

Montpelier, Vermont

The Vermont pictures really started to stack up last summer on tour with Balthrop, Alabama. We hadn't really planned to stay in Montpelier -- I don't even think we were planning on passing through Montpelier -- but then again, we hadn't really planned to get marching orders from the Canadian border patrol. That's part of the deal with road trips: where you think you're going, you're often not, and where you don't think you're going, you often are, and where you were once wasn't there when you weren't there -- Um, this is getting confusing. Does anybody have GPS?

What can you do in Montpelier, Vermont? Plenty, apparently. Our first needs were basic: eat, wash our clothes, and sleep. After parking our suddenly non-Canada-bound van in a pothole-ridden lot, we ran with our duffel bags through pouring rain into a laundromat and spent our first disappointed hours chugging quarters into washing machines, mixing our clothes all together because that's what bands on the road do.

Somewhere in between folding sweatpants at Launderama and checking into the Econolodge, we happened upon a pizzeria that offered killer artichokes and something called "Vermont pizza": apples, maple syrup, tomato sauce, and mozzarella. Not for the faint of tongue. The weather report looked grim. Pascal checked his iPhone and delivered the verdict with a sigh: "It's only raining where we are."

But in the morning, our Balthrop street team was out in full force and it looked like our luck might be starting to change. Before I could even stumble to the counter to grumble for my morning coffee, we were booked for a show that night at the lovely Langdon Street Café (which, I was saddened to learn upon writing this, closed its doors in May) and Lauren was busy making flyers from Michael's artwork. We had the afternoon free. We lolled about on Lake Elmore and I lay on a striped beach towel in the grass, reading a Bill Bryson book. The sky was blue as could be. No rain in sight. Tour was working its strange magic again.

Montpelier was also home to this puzzling sign, placed prominently in the lobby of the pizzeria where we stopped our first night. Eager to make a good impression in this new town, we wanted to make sure we were law-abiding, but this sign left us wondering if that was wise.

We'd been told Vermont was liberal, but . . .

#223: Montpelier Storage Space

Montpelier, Vermont

Sure, my band got turned away at the Canadian border. But if we hadn't, I never would've gotten to snap this sign in Montpelier, Vermont. In your face, Canucks!

#259: Meeting Poppa Neutrino

Rochester, New York

On the last night of Balthrop, Alabama summer tour -- AKA our "Six Nights in Vermont 'Cause We Got Turned Back at the Canadian Border 2010" tour -- we played a gig at the Bug Jar in Rochester, New York. About two or three nights prior to that, we played on a raft made out of recycled material in the rain between two sewage plants on Lake Champlain with a beer-guzzling duo, an amateur theater group, a couple of dogs, and a seafaring gentleman who called himself Poppa Neutrino. Poppa Neutrino had seen us play at Radio Bean in Burlington, Vermont the night before and there he was, grizzled and gentle, a man well into his seventies, seated in a lawn chair on a raft of questionable floatability.

He welcomed us on board and, once we settled in, proceeded to tell us the tale of how he once sailed from the port of New York across the North Atlantic, all the way to Ireland on a raft made out of junk. "Whoa," we said, slapping mosquitoes from our arms, eyes shifting nervously between one another. "Huh," others said, then turned around and checked to see if our van, parked on private property where the owners are famed for calling the cops and getting violators arrested, was still there.

I took a less doubtful yet still cautious approach and asked if he knew any sea shanties. But none of us quite knew what to make of such a claim. His story was fantastical, something straight out of Robinson Crusoe. And in this skeptical age, I'm afraid to say we found much to doubt about Poppa Neutrino's voyage -- worldly, urban Brooklynites that we were.

Well, we shouldn't have.

At the bar of the Bug Jar in Rochester, New York, I was drinking a pre-show whiskey and chatting with Buckridge when Michael, at the other end of the bar, motioned for me to come over. I sidled down off my bar stool and headed over. Michael turned around his laptop, which was opened to the Wikipedia page for Poppa Neutrino. Sure enough, in 1997-1998, Poppa Neutrino -- musician, nomad, philosopher, raftbuilder -- became the second person in history to cross the Atlantic on a raft, his homemade vessel, Son of Town Hall. He was certainly the first to do it on a raft built out of trash. His wife, Betsy, served as his captain.

Poppa was also the subject of a book by Alec Wilkinson called The Happiest Man in the World and a documentary by Victor Zimet and Stephanie Silber called "Random Lunacy". Also quite randomly, I used to regularly check out his daughters' band, The Flying Neutrinos, at Rodeo Bar in New York City.

In a sad coda to this story, we learned that Poppa Neutrino passed away on January 23 of this year at the age of 77. You can read his obituary here. A heartfelt remembrance to the man with a wild adventurer's spirit who made us all step back and believe in the possibility of magic.

#266: Nut Exp

Missouri, Route 266

Also known, in its non-cropped version, as the Chestnut Expressway. This two-lane highway that leads out of Springfield was part of the original Route 66. The rolling green hills and gently winding roads that meander through the Ozarks make this a flat-out beautiful drive.

Skull Hunting in Venice

Venice, Italy

The bus from Venice trundled down the long causeway, carting a dazed load of passengers away from the world's most improbable city. I was one of them that day, weary and delirious on a still-bright July evening after my first day of exploring this odd settlement, this treasure nest, this town built on sticks in a swamp.

It's easy to fall in love with Venice. But for me, it isn't about the picture-perfect vistas or the Guggenheim or the 80 cent prosecco you can by from a kiosk alongside the Grand Canal. OK, it's kind of about the 80 cent prosecco you can buy from a kiosk alongside the Grand Canal. But Venice, with its serpentine lanes and secret bridges and dead-ends, is the sort of place where I feel like someone took a screwdriver, dug into the control panel in my brain where the deepest dreams are stored, and programmed a place just for me. My map was useless. I just gave up, and let myself be led.

Just when I thought I'd succumbed to Stendhal Syndrome -- that condition where you pretty much drop dead from overexposure to culture and beauty -- just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I gazed out of the bus window on the way back to the hotel and -- what was that blur I saw? -- SKULLS! Skull signs! Skull signs on a rusty railway bridge! First one, then the next zipped past while I craned my neck to gawk at these high-speed flashes of silver and rust. A morbid procession of eerie warnings flashed past my vision, an entire typographical ossuary. The Rialto Bridge? Yeah, yeah. Sipping prosecco on a gondola on the Grand Canal? Uh-huh. Whatevs. Whisk me off to Venice and all I'm gonna do is slum for skull signs.

The bus passed over the bridge before I could dig up my camera, carting me off to the Hotel Ambasciatori. There I dragged my luggage into the lobby, checked in, and obsessed. About the skull signs. I knew there'd be no rest in my head till I went back to find them and photograph them. Time and distance can be hard to judge in a foreign city with a fizzy head full of bubbly. I knew this. Nevertheless, I gave my head an optimistic scratch and thought to myself whimsically: Well then, how about I just pop out a minute with my camera and take a little stroll to that bridge over the railroad tracks? How far could it possibly be?

Forty-five minutes later, eyes squinting in the hot sun, I arrived to my destination. Skullbridge. Granted, trudging uphill through the industrialized outskirts of Venice isn't everyone's cuppa tea, but it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon. And granted, skull signs are their own reward. But I do recall the weird feeling as I stood by the side of the road, alone in my derelict pilgrimage, stared at by well-to-do Venetians on Vespas as I angled my camera over the rusted railroad tracks. One reason is as good as any when it comes to collecting images. It was a long slog, yes. But worth it. You do it for the love of the quest.

1 to 99 on the Number Line

The Fall Café, Smith Street, Brooklyn

I'll admit it. I've missed the numbers.

Over the weekend I found myself persuaded out of my blue-book-induced stupor to head down to Tribeca, break out the hammer and sickle nails, and hang a bunch of numbers on a wall. It's the first time I've done such a thing since my installation at The Fall Café in Brooklyn in September 2007 (see above), and accompanied by good friends and free-flowing wine, it was all very gratifying. A hit-and-run installation injected a bit of adventure into my otherwise work-plagued weekend, and after hours of uneventful eyestrain I was more than ready for the task of carrying heavy planks of wood down four flights of stairs in three-inch heels -- a skill perfected after many gigs with Balthrop, Alabama, where lugging white picket fences up and down narrow stairs is par for the course. (Speaking of the band, we had a nice pick-me-up last week when NPR named "Subway Horns" as its song of the day. Not to toot my own, er, subway horn, but those are some wonderful friends I play music with.)

The number line went up Saturday night, hung around for a few hours while friends played music and read from their duct-taped chapbooks of poetry and novels-in-progress, and the next thing I knew I was back in Brooklyn, shooting pool at B61 (the bar, not the bus), trading tales of childhood shoplifting.

As is often the case with any event where good friends and wine are present, I realized much later that the colorful evening had slipped away before I remembered to capture the night's installation for that old drudge of a companion, Posterity. But a bit of digging around unearthed this archeological specimen, a picture from the original installation in 2007, so I thought I'd post it. After all, the grid of planks hanging on that yellow wall, coated tip-to-toe in numbers, is where the harebrained idea of this blog had its genesis. (Peter Gabriel is singing "Supper's Ready" as I write, and I think it's affecting my syntax.)

Before &7, there was only Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. There was only #1-99. Oh yeah, and there was this sullen self-portrait I found stuffed into the beautiful Venetian notebook where I collected all the data for the photographs. (For reasons I don't entirely remember, Vienna turned me into a sour teenager one afternoon, until I got my bearings. Yes, that is a picture of a Prague tank on my black hoodie.)

Also in the pile of forgotten goodies was my slightly crinkled original artist statement, which explains some of the method to the madness -- the intricate art of number-hunting. I thought I'd post it here to appease the grumbling chap Posterity, and to share it with those of you who blinked and therefore never got to see the installation:

I can’t think about the numbers in this series without thinking about a certain West Virginia license plate. We travelled a lot as a family, mostly camping trips out West that involved endless hours on the open road, gazing out at passing cars and scenery through the grubby windows of a blue Econoline van. Like any kid on a long road trip, I invented ways of making the time on the long interstates pass more quickly. A favorite was the license plate game, which involved “collecting” all 50 states. Inevitably, the trip would run out before we got through even half the list. My only success with finding all 50 states finally came at the age of 21, when I was tearing up Route 90 in my brother’s red minivan on my post-college American road trip (TM). The West Virginia plate, with its blue-clawed state outline, was the last on my list (yes, I had Alaska; yes, I had Hawaii), and I was so overcome to finally see it fueling up at a gas station in Colorado that I startled the driver by shouting out, “There it IS! I GOT it!” and proudly catalogued the end of my search with a proudly written WEST VIRGINIA in a spiral notebook. Not only was it more exciting than Route 80 through Nebraska (it would be hard to think of anything that wasn’t), it was more exciting than the afternoon hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. In a way, finding the complete set was one of the highlights of the trip.

The task of intertwining the leisure of travel with the obsessive hunt has always held a certain appeal. Other people collect shot glasses to mark their journeys, I collect images. The license plate game sustained me while travelling on the roads of the U.S.A. It wasn’t until I started exploring the side streets and cobblestone alleys of European cities that I was awakened to the idea of collecting numbers.

The 99 numbers in this series, taken in 3 cities – Prague, Vienna, and Budapest – over the course of 2 weeks in the summer of 2006, show a wide variety of styles in architecture and typography: some are extraordinarily ornamental, others quite ordinary. The project was born as much out of an interest in methodology (i.e., giving my obsessive-compulsive mind something to fixate on and watching how it grappled with the task) as it was an art project. The two have never been far apart for me.

Every number here has a story. Some were captured quite deliberately: the stark, graphic image of the 54 on a wall in Prague was the number that started the idea for the project, followed swiftly by an ornamental 3 near the castle and a nearby bright red 9. Another number, astride the Praterstern ferris wheel in Vienna, came to me through sheer happenstance: I was in a moving tram and quickly snapped a shot through the window, hoping for some “good numbers”. I discovered only later that I had found my 28. The hunt for numbers 1-99 began with the same sense of ease that marks the start of any crossword puzzle, only to end in a frantic final 24-hour push in Budapest for the upper register numbers that rivalled the Louvre-in-45-minutes in Godard’s Band of Outsiders.

My original concept was to collect 99 numbers and eventually compile the images into either a handbound book or to display the collection on a single wall in its entirety. The literal throw-it-all-on-the-wall approach turned out to be the idea that seemed the most fitting. You can take in the whole sequence all at once, a task and pleasure that would be impossible otherwise. The eye is drawn as much to the exhaustiveness of the whole as it is to the sum of its parts. And as anyone who has seen my notebooks can attest, boxes and order have always been part of my way of structuring my world and art. For inspiration for this installation format, I owe a debt to the work of Zak Smith, whose excellent Pictures Showing What Happens on Every Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, blew my mind at the Whitney Biennial a few years back. Thanks, Zak. I may get around to making that book someday, too.

And so here they are, compiled at last, each one of the 99 numbers gathered from my two-week trip: snatched from architectural pieces, stolen from electrical boxes, from Russian submarine clock storefronts, road signs, modern art museum lockers, planetarium installations, memorials, and tram wires.

What was the last number compiled in this collection, my West Virginia license plate of the journey? I won’t forget that one, either. Number 42. Taken at a terminal of the Budapest airport. Nothing like coming in right under the wire.

Therese Cox

Brooklyn, 2007

That tome ought to keep Posterity quiet for awhile, and I can head now back to Blue Book Mountain, safe in the knowledge I've done my word count penance after a slow week. Mea culpa to those who come here not just for pictures but for all the chicken scratch that accompanies it. Thanks again for the inspiration, Zak Smith. And many thanks to the supremely talented, all-encouraging, über-organized Jackie for giving me the opportunity to dust off the numbers. It's good to be back.

Bad Route Road

I-94, Montana

Every few months or so, it seems the badly-named places of North America are dragged out from their various dark corners of the world and given a good airing in the papers. Car bombs, economic bailouts, and crooked politicians all make for a heavy slog through the newsprint, which may go a long way in explaining the presence of recurring fluffy features on Boring, Oregon or, as is the case with today's Guardian, plucky headlines that ask, "Anyone fancy a break in Asbestos, Canada?" (No, but thanks for asking.)

I will be the first to admit that I welcome a good chuckle at the expense of Hell, Michigan and Intercourse, Pennsylvania as much as the next person. A few place names in these features are old saws (Truth or Consequences, New Mexico) while others (Purgatory, Maine) delight anew. But no matter how many silly lists of oddball place names I've perused over the years, nothing beats the thrill of unexpectedly spotting one of these rare beasts out in the wild.

Take Bad Route Road, Exit 192 off I-94 in Montana. This ominous sign came into view through the cracked windshield of the Balthrop, Alabama tour van last summer on our month-long tour of the U.S. We were hauling out to the west coast from Fargo, North Dakota, recovering from our show the night before opening for the wonderful Josh Ritter, lulled by long stretches of road in Big Sky Country and driving through a steady grim drizzle. The first road sign whipped past at 75 m.p.h. There was a pause, then an uncertain voice from the front seat: "Did that just say Bad Route Road?" "Yep. I think it did."

Among the well-documented entries in the Ministry of Silly Names, I have yet to come across a list as bizarre as those in Bill Bryson's amusing Made in America, but in the meantime, here's the regurgitated list from today's G2 magazine, which brought me a few much-needed grins on the downtown number 2 train. The list came with the following promising headline: Some more holiday ideas: Other North American towns that might struggle to attract the tourist pound. I don't know about the tourist pound, but you can bet there's a whole lot of nudge-nudge wink-wink going on at the city limits of these towns:

Intercourse Pennsylvania

Boring Oregon

Dull Ohio

Ordinary Virginia

Spunky Puddle Ohio

Mosquitoville Vermont

Hell Michigan

Slaughterville Oklahoma

Tightwad Missouri

Roaches Illinois

Dildo Newfoundland

Crotch Lake Ontario

Bummerville California

Gas Kansas

Purgatory Maine

But enough laughter at the expense of my fellow countrymen and continent-folk. I'm off to sigh over more fetching photographs of Nick Clegg read the serious news of the world, and when I'm done with that task, I think I just might kick back with a beer from Fucking Austria.

#350

#350, Tucson, AZ

After this past week, I keep thinking that I'm done with Tuscon, but it would appear that Tucson is not quite done with me.

One of the pleasures of photographing numbers is the sort of reverse tourism it lets me indulge in. Instead of reading about places in a guide book and then seeking them out, I seek out the places first and then look -- often times long after I've returned home -- to see if I can make any sense out of what I've just captured. In this case, the 350 marks the home of Che's, a bar and music venue on the stretch of 4th Avenue. While Che's claims to be a jewel in the crown of this surreal desert outpost, it's surely not as culturally significant than the tiki bar where we played in a hundred degree heat to a crowd of three fans -- including that guy in the cabaña hat who kept talking to himself.

An online travel guide where I sought to find more information on the elusive Che's informs me of this: "Whether you prefer bourgeois elegance or nihilistic debauchery, Tucson can provide an evening's entertainment." Where, exactly, would playing accordion in front of a hookah bar fall on that continuum? And can we call this 350 bourgeois, or should we just admit that Tucson is just clutching at adjectives?

What can I say? It happens to the best of us. And with fifteen days left to the 2009 countdown, I'll be clutching at anything that doesn't move and looks like it came from a dictionary.

#313

#313, Albuquerque, NM

On the road to Albuquerque from God-knows-where, Arizona, passing Meteorite City, the Petrified Forest, and a "Pet the ostrich" roadside attraction. Rolling through New Mexico on the old Route 66 where all the rest stops sound like country/western songs: Crazy Creek, Dead River, the R.V. and Horse Motel. Red rocks and the painted desert remind you of that song by the Handsome Family but the van is cranking out the Pretenders: "Standin' in the middle of my life with my pants behind me." Realize you're mishearing lyrics again and look out the window at the hand-painted sign. CACTUS STUFF / CLEAN RESTROOMS: EXIT 72.

The van pulls into Albuquerque and it's about a hundred degrees. A quick dinner at the Blackbird Cafe and then load-in at Burt's Tiki Lounge where band stickers and tattoo parlor ads plaster the doors and windows. There's no air conditioning inside, but that swirly fan in the ceiling, you're told, will cool you right down. Shoot some pool and drink the free beer while you wait for showtime. Everyone always wants to know what's up with the stage set and the painted white picket fences. Just smile and say, "Welcome to Balthrop, Alabama."

You've been on tour for three weeks and can't keep track of where you're sleeping anymore. A roadside motel, the floorboards of friends. But the next morning it's back in the van, listening to the Red House Painters, going over the show from the night before, that fantastic infernal romp. Cruising back onto Highway 40, stare in disbelief at the billboard on the entrance ramp that reads: "Hollywood Hotties: our slots put out." Pascal, behind the wheel: "Stay classy, Albuquerque."

#222

#222, Portland, OR

I love counterculture stores in American cities. They're so cute and earnest. This shop, complete with edgy Goth font, is called "Another State of Mind," which reminds me of the ultimate punk rock band-on-tour movie by the same name. I watched the movie when I was eighteen and remember a certain level of awe watching the story unfold, as if I were watching a pioneering team of scientists discover DNA. Now I realize it was more like a bunch of kids looking for a 7-11, but still, there's a magic to it that I can only attribute to the beautiful impulse that drives musicians to go on tour.

Balthrop, Alabama didn't have to contend with quite the same set of circumstances on the road as Social Distortion and Youth Brigade (at least we didn't have to watch our school bus, er, van get towed off), but it's hard not to be moved by the sight of the roll of pennies handed to Youth Brigade drummer Mark Stern as payment from a San Francisco club owner. At the very least, we always got some free PBRs and grateful handshakes out of the deal.

One really punk rock thing we did on the road was stop at a Dairy Queen in a small town in Ohio to get us prepped for the gig that night in Athens. The DQ satisfied, but sure it would've been great to step into a time warp and find ourselves at a roadside Haagen Daas being served ice cream by Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and later, Fugazi fame. (For optimal scoop action, see clip at 1:58.) One scoop of vanilla in a sugar cone + punk ethos + earnest manifesto-that-isn't-a manifesto. Now that's what I call straight edge.