Fencing off the Camelot Parkside Hotel Before Its Demolition, Tulsa, Okla.

Hi! from the HOLIDAY INN HOLIDOME in Lawrence, Kan.

Hello! We listen to Huey Lewis and the News in the Holidome, and we can't sleep. What a bizarre journey the Heartburn/Heartache tour has been. We saw our lovely internet friends in Missouri, bought used books in Arkansas, got a speeding ticket in Oklahoma. Did up Tulsa but only halfway, shot great shots in rural southern Kansas, ate the best brisket of my life in Wichita, stayed an extra night in slutty Lawrence where everyone is a hot white soul-lovin hipster slut, except for the road-tripping brits I almost murdered when they tried to hijack our cab. That's it. Drive shoot eat replaced with eat drink smoke. No work. Break from work. Focus on self. First time....ever, possibly. Let the images speak for themselves. There are about 900 so far, plus Dan's, and we're finally going into KC tomorrow. We will sample 2-3 of about 100 bbq joints in that city and catch a Royals night game. We can afford field box seats because all the midwestern sprawlscape citizens are poor. Then we'll fly back, I into the summer of misery and Dan into the Challenges of the Unknown. You're either with us or against us.

Screaming Penitents at Oral Roberts University Prayer Tower, Tulsa, Okla.

Saga of the Headless Mannequins, Day One: The Slumlords Reveal the Mannequins

Joplin, Mo.

Bartlesville, Okla. Fire Station at Lunchtime

Caney, Kan.

Carthage, Mo.

Saga of the Headless Mannequins, Day Two, Joplin, Mo.

Read about it here.

Cherokee Turnpike, Okla.

Tulsa, Okla.

Webb City, Mo.

Joplin, Mo.

Outside of town

Leaving Rich Hill, MO. More of this town on Flickr.

Rusty Submarine

Outside Rich Hill, MO Post Office.

Uneeda Biscuit

Rich Hill, MO.

Rich Hill Youth Center

Rich Hill, MO.

Church, State

The sign that led us into Rich Hill, MO.

Power Plant

Outside of KC.

Buffalo

Back Bay

0720.

AA DC-3 at Logan Terminal B

About 0640 yesterday morning. Not sure why she was there.

Addendum.

Will write/blog with light instead. Pizza and Mountain Dew for breakfast.

Sitting in a porch in Joplin,

I find that I have little interest in blogging about this trip, though I will say that we did good work with the cameras in rural Rich Hil, MO yesterday and have been having a swell time eating and drinking with friends. I don't know what we're running from or to this time, but at least we don't have to work.

Try the new combo radar-satellite maps at weather.com.

They're very cool.

KC Siege coming together.

My rush-mailed Tulsa Convention & Visitors Bureau materials just arrived, informing me that Bob Wills often played at Cain's Ballroom, which has a spring-loaded dance floor!

I spent yesterday evening playing along to Ernest Tubb on my Telecaster and my fake lap steel, learning new tricks. Some Bob Wills material also just arrived. Sweet!

There is also an OK Jazz Hall of Fame.

The trip begins in just 42 hours!

Summer of Misery commences!

Between finding a new place, having to move, trying to repair my body and mind as quickly as possible, two canceled vacations (so far), and literally endless work, things are non-optimal. All persons are warned that they may at any time suffer damage to or loss of personal property due to spray from exploding aneurysm and by their presence within fifteen (15) feet of me agree to release from liability me for any claims related to possible arterial explosion.

Class M.

$275 and a 16-hour weekend course in the Bunker Hill CC parking lot get you a motorcycle endorsement on your license, allowing you to operate two- or three-wheeled vehicles with engines displacing more than 50cc.

If I had known it was this simple, I'd have done it years ago.

DON'T BIKE ON SIDEWALKS.

When you do, you make everyone on two wheels look bad.

And just after I link to a good article in the Globe,

I spot the phrase "three-wheel bicycles" in this article. That's a linguistic impossibilty. Idiots!

Another Reason to Combat Sprawl

A solid Globe article reveals that some common bird species have experienced population declines of 70-99% due to suburban and agricultural sprawl. The author wisely points out that it's not just the suburbs spreading over the earth, but the agricultural infrastructure needed to feed the exploding population and fuel its automobiles.

Driving Northeast Toward Edmonton

This might be my favorite image from XCAN last year.

LEISURE

...is going away from where you are while being paid by your employer to not do work. What a concept.

So if I go on a solo trip in July, should I go to:

• Austin
• San Francisco
• Saint John, NB
• St. John's, NF
• ADDED: Vancouver
• NY

?

Blessed with another autumn day.

It's June 14--59° and cloudy. Just like the day before. Whenever I REALLY start to like it here in Boston, the weather strikes.

On another note, we are one week from the summer solstice. My plans to wake up and see the amazingly early sunrises--around or before 5am, which we never had in New York--have been repeatedly thwarted by my inability to get out of bed.

Animal Precinct

is a fascinating, really New York show.

Alternatively-Fueled Home Delivery Vehicles by Fleet

USPS: 37,000
UPS: 1500
FedEx: 240

I'm going to stick with the Post Office for most of my shipping needs.

Sausage Queen

Minding the grill at a Times Square street fair, 8.07.04. Having a decent point & shoot camera on you can yield great dividends when the right moment arrives.

Thanks to Dan Barry, I may have a little 'gallery' show at Javapalooza in Middletown, CT. This is one of the images I'll probably send down.

Secret LNG terminal being constructed off of Boston?

There sure has been a lot of offshore construction activity northeast of Boston Harbor recently. Could it be that one of the two natural gas (LNG) terminals proposed for that area has been approved? Has construction started? The media is silent--well, most of it. In the past, when it came to covering LNG battles between fishermen, self-appointed human representatives of mammalian ocean-dwellers, other citizens, and giant energy companies, The Globe was always there.

Obviously something is being built off of Gloucester right now. So when I use Google News to search for "gloucester lng," why does the only relevant article come from the Norman, Oklahoma Transcript?

It contains Salem Daily News content. The Globe archives are suddenly silent. I also received word that the marine industry trade magazine MarineLink published a press release showing that a Boston company had won a 20-year contract to support LNG vessels at the secret Gloucester terminal--and had commissioned two multimillion dollar new tugs for the project.

We almost definitely need more than the four LNG terminals the country now has. And we're almost definitely getting a new one (three more LNG terminals are proposed for Massachusetts alone).

Shouldn't the media educate us about this relatively clean and safe form of energy and our own need for it? Shouldn't the media do more than cover epic battles against infrastructure? Or stop inciting fear about the extant LNG terminal in Everett?

To talk about infrastructure--the reality that supports our reality--gets you branded a weirdo or a terrorist. But I think that there are still people who are genuinely curious about how the mechanical side of our society functions.

I'm one of them. Please keep me in the loop.

Furthermore, if people are to make educated decisions about needed infrastructure being built "in their backyards," the media should help educate them (us) about our needs.

Silence implies that we are either too stupid to understand or that our opinions don't matter anyway.

Eliminate the Useless.

Must focus.

Drinking

• This is the age of unfulfillment.
• I will have the fro for two more weeks. Then, Marley will buzz it away in Missouri.
• I am worried about living alone.
• Etc., etc.

Capturing Scary and Depressing Winter Boston

You have to land on a redeye from at least as west as Denver, completely exhausted, to see it. It has to be about 7:29 a.m., with the useless February sun just having risen. It has to be at least ten degrees below freezing, with the air so thin that any exposed part of your body feels ready to explode into the icy vacuum. The smokestacks of the Mystic River power plant in Everett and the US Gypsum plant in Charlestown have to be blasting aternating columns of steam and haze directly upward, at opposite ends of the faded Tobin Bridge. This is just setting the stage for the ride out of the airport. As your cab navigates the snaking ramps to the Sumner Tunnel, you catch a glimpse of all the hundreds of pointed woodframe rooftops in East Boston, then see the sun's weak rays reflecting off the anonymous and and unidentifiable skyscrapers downtown.

How to pack it all into one shot or series of shots?

This is what I think about as summer begins to arrive.

I need a tripod, an arctic suit, and an elevated vantage point in East Boston to nail this.

Sunset on the Ohio

In celebration of 3 years of DM-RB roadtrips, I thought I'd be posting a lot more images of our inaugural trip to Memphis in 2005. Mired in in several ongoing struggles, I haven't been able to do so. But the images (data) survive.

Complete Transit Insanity

The Mass. Convention Center Authority earlier this week announced its proposal to double the size of its parking lot under Boston Common. James Rooney, MCCA executive Director, claims that this could serve as the parking lot for the as-yet-unbuilt Silver Line bus rapid transit tunnel through Downtown Boston.

I guess they assumed that tons of people drive into downtown, only to get on the subway or bus there. Have they not noticed that none of the existing transit stations in the city have parking lots?

Where's the beef?

I'm hungry. If I were in my native New York City, I'd walk to a deli/bodega/etc on the corner and buy some cold cuts with which I'd make a sandwich. But cold cuts are hard to find, at least in my neighborhood. There are no meats and no slicers in any of the corner stores. Why?

Endless Bullshit

Working through some technical difficulties over here. This is starting to sound like my college blog, where all I did was post one-line statements that roughly referred to the day's abominations.

Boston [Globe] Terror Envy, Continued

On the heels of the alleged JFK Fuel Tank Plot (perpetrated by some very dumb-sounding Carribean Muslims), today's Globe must immediately connect the almost-news to Logan and the significance of Boston to 9/11:

Terror threats have particular resonance at Logan Airport, where terrorists boarded the two planes that struck the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.

Keep in mind that the article explicitly states that DHS officials informed Governor Patrick that no credible evidence suggested a new threat against Logan. Additionally, if you weren't sure where Logan's fuel tank facilities were or how they worked, now you know.

Do we really need every purported threat connected to our hometown(s) so we can panic along with the rest of the country?

All this means is that harbor photographers like myself will enjoy even more harassment down at the waterfront. Let freedom ring.

Back in Queens.