The inland ports of the California Delta are fascinating.

UP #170: Republic State Bank/Eagle's Nest Bar (Abandoned), Republic, Mich.

UP #169: Abandoned Mine, Republic, Mich.

UP #168: Abandoned Mine, Republic, Mich.

The New Year

As I sit here preparing to head off to a gathering of friends, I feel the need to play out 2008 with a few more UP images. These desolate places really provided a lot of inspiration and momentum, not only for Meade and me but for others who heard about and saw them later. Infrastructure is kicking (we wrote a song about Republic, pictured above). The photo thing is going well, and I have some new equipment to help me further both efforts. I'm always kicking around ideas for writing projects that I don't start. No time for shit. I am unmarried, have no children, and I don't own a home or car, yet I don't have a spare minute. I'm supposed to be on vacation, but I feel insanely stressed. I am inhaling a Lean Cuisine® Thai-Style Chicken frozen dinner and downing a Harpoon IPA. My blood pressure must be incredibly high. Happy new year.

UP #167: Higley's Saloon (Abandoned), Champion, Mich.

ABBQ #42: Snow's Brisket and Sauce

I need to post this shot from Lexington, Tex. because ever since I had this brisket for breakfast, I've been thinking about it every morning.

Click the pic to see more from the country surrounding Austin.

UP #166: Higley's Saloon (Abandoned), Champion, Mich.

UP #165: Champion, Mich.

Much of the town is in this shot.

UP #164: Abandoned Motel on Highway 41

Possibly in Three Lakes, Mich.

CPC Flashback No. 2

After my friends abandoned me with the MILF cougarlawyer, things became even more interesting. The old people began quizzing me about the songs they were playing on the juke (lots of Meat Loaf, unknown to me). They also bought me two or three gin and tonics. A stocky but athletic, white-haired, 50-something man showed up and kissed the MILF cougarlawyer repeatedly. She kept telling me that she had a 6-bedroom house and that her kids worked for her. He introduced himself as Joe Walsh. He immediately began to make fun of my hat. The fat guy to my left bought me another drink, which tasted like cough syrup, red bull, and rum. I drank it fast.

Get Woldo another drink, cried Joe Walsh. The people laughed.

Why the fuck are you calling me Waldo, I asked.

C'meah. Lemme tell ya somethin, said Joe Walsh. He came over to my side. He was about my height. He said come ova heah. I followed him away from the bar to the back of the room. I did not know what was about to happen.

At the back of the room, at the end of the Sports Garden, I found a hip-height mirror next to the bathrooms. It ran all the way up to the ceiling. Joe Walsh told me to look into the mirror and tell him what I thought I looked like. I said nothing.

Woldo. You look like Woldo, he said.

Thank you, Joe Walsh, I said. In your infinite wisdom and years of experience beyond my own, you have explained this all to me. Thank you.

No problem, said Joe Walsh, smiling proudly and drunkenly. He reached out his hand, which I may or may not have shook. He said: Joe Walsh ain't afraid to tell you the truth.

It was then that I resolved to kill Joe Walsh.

Meeting People in Somerville

or Cambridge or Boston...is impossible. They are afraid of you. They protect their drinks by placing napkins over them when they leave the bar to smoke or go to the bathroom. In the event that they are drinking their beer through a straw, like a fucking retard, they force the straw through the napkin over their pint glass to make clear the point that they will be back and that you are not to talk to them. If you do talk to them, you won't get anywhere. They may be pretty and educated and drinking, but they don't want to talk to you...or anyone. Everyone tries their hardest to be an island, their own island, separate from their friends and anyone they may not know. Boston is the greatest collection of ambitious, capable, and useless people I have seen to date. (New New Yorkers, by comparison, are mostly useless.)

Meanwhile, if you need anything else to do, there are fresh work emails available 24 hours a day from a not-24-hours-a-day business, so that if you ever need a distraction from your surroundings or yourself, there is always a task to be completed, someone else's need to be fulfilled, something to do.

UP #163/Dignity Hunt XX: Pothole Repair, L'Anse, Mich.

UP #162: Hiring 10 Smiling Faces, L'Anse, Mich.

UP #161: Abandoned Baler, L'Anse, Mich.

UP #160: Abandoned Baler, L'Anse, Mich.

UP #159: Abandoned Baler, L'Anse, Mich.

Return to the U.P.

We're only about halfway the photographic tale of the journey to the Upper Peninsula, dear readers. Even though half a year has passed since the trip concluded, I must honor my promise to post every "good" photo from the journey both here and on Flickr.

I'm starting back up with five photos from the tiny town of L'Anse, Michigan. There's a ceiling tile plant, the Shrine of the Snowshoe Priest, and a trainyard from which logs are sent out to be processed. That's about it.

There was one little event that took place in L'Anse that neither Dan nor I documented: that of the L'Anse pizza. We ordered a medium pie in a just-opened restaurant at the edge of downtown. The shop seemed to be run by some twenty-something local women and their big pizza oven. They made our pie to order and sliced it very bizzarrely, cutting it across and down. It tasted deliciously un-New Yorkian, in a Pizza-Hutty kind of way. It was delicious and perfect and powered us toward a hell of a night in Marquette.

You'll read about that soon.

Dan Meade's Texas BBQ Article

For those of you who have not seen it, Dan's article was used on about 150 TV station websites.

http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=9540791

Disgusting

The subway cars here in NY have their air conditioners turned on today, out of necessity.

Dan Meade and Rob Bellinger with Fat F---, Chinese-Mexican Restaurant,Briarwood, Queens, New York City

DEEP SOUTH 09

THE MORE THE MERRIER.

THE MORE THE CHEAPER.

SAVANNAH-ATHENS-ATL-TALLAHASSEE-WHEREVER.

EARLY JUNE 2009.

Night Flying

Cruising around the 5 boroughs and Long Island at 1500 feet is probably the best way to see New York...from a distance.

ABBQ #81: Lone Star Christmas Trees, Elgin, Tex.