Final Thoughts

Final Waffle House count:49

Well, we made it back to Los Angeles late last night, flying into Ontario airport from Baton Rouge after a few hours in Clinton getting the last of our footage.

A few thoughts on the trip in general:

1. The next time a conservative acquaintence of yours brings up in conversation that America has achieved equality of opportunity and there's no need for further civil rights legislation, quietly reach under the table, remove your right shoe, and beat them to death with it.

2. Outsourcing should be more important than terrorism to every voter in America. You may know someone who was in the Towers, you may know someone who knew someone--I'm telling you that every single town we visited was devastated because their livelihood was moved overseas. And these are just the small towns in the south, where wages were relatively low. The bigger cities in the north have had it as bad or worse. Terror may affect thousands of people in a horrible way--outsourcing has affected hundreds of millions in a way that lasts generations. It's not just Republicans at fault, it's not just Democrats. Everyone helped this happen.

3. Lynyrd Skynyrd was always a lousy band. Playing them on every radio station format once an hour doesn't make them any better.

3a. Ozzy Osbourne is a greater cultural force than any of us know. He's all over the radio--with Sabbath, without Sabbath, in Baton Rouge, in Tallahassee. People used to be frightened of this guy. Maybe his success drooling on television makes him acceptable to listen to now. I don't know.

4. If I lived in Louisiana, I would be dead by 35 and have to be buried in a piano crate. The food there is insanely good. Even the worst diner in Jeanerette had better food than some of the better places in LA. The best restaurant in Donaldsonville, with the 22 year old Air Force cook, would blow the doors off of Campanile. And I love Campanile. So you don't have variety. (There's basically one Chinese restaurant in every town, always called the "Chinese Dragon.") Here's the thing--you don't want variety. You just want seconds.

5. If I lived in the Florida panhandle, I would be dead by 33 and my liver would have to be buried in a piano box.

That about all. Everything else is in the previous posts. Thanks for reading this. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep blogging about anything else. If I do, I'll send out another mass e-mail.

Take care,

Matthew

Day One

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to day one of the Red Sox dynasty. It may only last a year, but this year is ours. As the man said, baseball is designed to break your heart--but not this year.

So last night, before heading to Baton Rouge to watch the Red Sox win the 2004 World Series, we went to Clinton, Louisiana. Clinton, as every single person in town will tell you, has the oldest operating courthouse in the state. It's so nice that they'll be filming some of the "Dukes of Hazzard" movie there in December. Lucky Clinton.

We drove in at around 4:00 and just walked into the first open business we could find. The proprietor of the catering establishment was a Lady in her 60's. I capitalize Lady because she was the full Southern Lady package. She was like a character from Gone With the Wind who would be horrified by Clark Gable's barbaric language. She stepped out of her kitchen and we were immediately her guests and there was nothing we could do about it. Technically, I think we were hostages to this incredibly nice woman's hospitality.

She told us all about the town, its history, the buildings. She was clearly the richest Lady in town (we would later find out this was a correct assumption)--the catering gig was a hobby. We eventually asked, as we ask in every town, about the diversity in Clinton. The things we're looking for when we ask this question are things like "Is the town integrated?" "Does the town have a troubled racial past?" "Where do the black people in this town live, work, and shop?" That sort of thing. What we got this time was a little different.

The Lady told us that things between the races are just fine in Clinton. In fact, they were never that bad because "our blacks are very respectful." I pardoned myself to have a brief embolism. It occurred to her a few minutes later to add that "respect has to go both ways." A second after saying that, though, she brought up how a black man was running for mayor of Clinton, but that he was "not an intelligent black." In fact, she did not want to see him as mayor, so some of the citizens came together to run another candidate who was, presumably, an intelligent white man. She would be happy to vote for a black man, like the current mayor of Baton Rouge, but this one was "disgraceful."

We excused ourselves from the conversation and tried to leave. She was having none of it, telling us who to see and where to go and then insisting that we take a fresh pie for the road. We didn't want an entire pie. No matter where we watched the game, we just knew we did not want to wash down a late dinner with this...pie of affliction. Nevertheless, she insisted and we insisted and she told us to give whatever we didn't eat to the maids at our motel. So we took a pie.

It was fantastic. I'll admit it. Chocolate, but not heavy. Imagine a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles as a light, fluffy pie. Amazing. I continue to feel guilt about it today.

We went back to Clinton today. While the Lady's feelings may be shared by others, we didn't meet anyone with the stones to actually be as obvious as her. We met, among others, a wonderful black woman who marched with CORE in Clinton and served 30 days for it. She never hated her town, though, and now runs a clothing shop on Main Street, where she picketed 40 years ago. Not bad.

It turns out the town used to be home to a sizable Jewish community. The Jews in Clinton traded in cotton and cotton goods, the major industry at the time. When the boll weevil blight destroyed the cotton for a while, the Jews left, leaving behind a cemetery with a lot of Jewish names and a few new buildings.

The North torched Clinton but good during the big one back in 1865, leaving only one building standing. I'll give you one guess whose catering company now occupies that building. Yup, we saw the Lady again today and met her husband. Her husband told us he renovated the building as a gift to his wife, who loved the heritage of it. He mentioned that he tried to get it registered as a National Historic Landmark, but they won't register commercial properties. He tried an end-around by mentioning that the building has a basement, which is almost unheard of in Louisiana. No dice. Then he told them that the basement was used to smuggle slaves out of the south on the Underground Railroad. They looked up the provenance of the building--it was built and owned by Jews at the time. The Jews in Louisiana were abolitionists, but there was no Railroad in the area. The Lady's husband shrugged and said "They didn't buy it." The 1832 building remains unregistered.

We have a little more shooting tomorrow in Clinton, then--perhaps--an early flight back to LA tomorrow night. Otherwise, I'll be back on Saturday.

One more post to follow, a final summary of the trip.

The Red Sox won the World Series. We'll all have stories about where we were when it happened, who we were talking to... Personally, I was in a bar, the Fox and Hounds English Bar and Grille in Baton Rouge. The place is about as English as David Ortiz. Three big rooms full of smoking LSU students. The game was spent on the phone with my brother Andy. In the ninth, my father and mother did a two-line conference and my brother three way called me in, so all four of us were on the phone together when it ended. And yes, I wept like a three-year old girl.

I literally have no feeling right now. I'll ask again--how do you feel when you get what you've wanted for your whole life?

In the meantime, it was all work for the last couple of days.

I've got a few minutes to talk about Donaldsonville (which I'll be calling D'ville for the sake of sanity). D'ville is halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a comfortable number of miles off of Insterstate 10. For one magical year in the 19th century, they were the capital of the state of Louisiana. I know this because everyone there told us. So, once the state capital moved, they traded on their proximity to the railroad between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It wasn't like the capital heyday, but they did quite well. Then Eisenhower went and built the damned Interstate, which allowed people to get from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and bypass D'ville entirely. They were screwed.

But not entirely. Two petrochemical plants moved just outside of town, keeping most of it employed for the last thirty years or so. Except one of them closed recently and the other one is scaling back. Uh-oh. NOW they're screwed.

Here's the thing, though--they've got some legitimate history to make some money off of, and their downtown is ALL upside. Almost every building in town could be unbelievably beautiful and I don't just mean the business district. We saw some shotgun houses on a street where, if they were restored, you'd see tourists driving up and down taking pictures. As it is now, only one has been fixed up. It leaves you with a little taste of the potential. Hollywood has noticed it, too. They'll be shooting scenes from the new "Dukes of Hazzard" movie there in December, and in January the remake of "All The King's Men."

("WHY??? WHY???" you cry. "Why in God's name remake 'All The King's Men'?" And I tell you they have Sean Penn, Jude Law, and someone else who I can't remember, but impressed me when they told me. That said, I don't know why they have to remake "All The King's Men." It doesn't make any sense.)

We drove into D'ville at about 11:00am and immediately stopped at the Railroad Cafe for lunch. They have an old fashioned open kitchen type of diner and the BBQ Sausage Po-boy was amazing. Actually, all the food in D'ville is amazing. Their other big restaurant is called Grapevine and serves Cajun-style food prepared by a 22 year old who learned to cook in the Air Force. He is going to nursing school and cooks four-star food as a hobby.

There's a bar there called Hambonz, opened by a guy who moved back to Louisiana after years away and wanted to have a place where all the folks in D'ville could come together to get drunk and sing karaoke. So he opened one, and then decided to run for president of the Chamber of Commerce. This guy should be mayor. He has a crystal clear vision of how to change the town for the better, and I hope he gets to implement it.

One thing about D'ville is that it seemed borderline dangerous where other towns have not. The police we talked to mentioned the possibility of random violence after dark, and some of the residents in the dicier neighborhoods spoke about rampant theft, burglary, and shooting. Atmore, for example, doesn't seem to have this problem. They feel like warmer people there overall, but maybe that's just lousy hindsight on my part.

We stayed last night in Baton Rouge and today drove 500 miles all around the state through some brokedown small towns. Our last stop was our most promising--Clinton, Louisiana. We met a very nice racist woman who gave us a delicious pie. I'll tell that story tomorrow. Right now, I just want to watch Baseball Tonight over and over again.

Dare To Dream

I think it is too early to say that this is a definite thing, but it seems like it should be okay to at least acknowledge the POSSIBILITY that the Red Sox are about to win the World Series.

How does one react to this news?

The wise man said, "Everyone should have something they've wanted for their whole life."

But--what do you do when you get it?

(I know, hopefully get perspective. Shut up.)

I have to be in Lake Arthur, Louisiana to find out. We spent the day in Donaldsonville, Louisiana today and it was a super, super town. I'll talk all about it tomorrow.

Blue Devils

Lots to mention today:

First off, New Orleans is one FUCKED UP place (and a special hello to any Manlius Pebble Hill students referred here by Delia Temes!!! That kind of grownup language is considered inappropriate at MPH, so make sure to tell them you learned it here.). I'm not kidding. After Game 1 of the Series the other night, we walked over to Bourbon Street. I figured since it wasn't Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest, it might be a lively but fun drinking neighborhood comparable to say, Rush Street in Chicago. Uh-uh. It's the same puke-and-piss riddled place it was when I was here ten years ago, just with several thousand fewer people.

Eating dinner on the balcony of a Bourbon Street restaurant, we were treated to a panorama of drunken stupidity that unfolded over two magical hours that no one will ever forget. On the opposite balcony, at least a hundred guys were there, swaying back and forth dangerously. It had all the makings of a Deer Creek/Grateful Dead fiasco (two hundred year old building + notoriously corrupt building inspectors + drunken overweight frat guys and eye surgeons=the lead story on CNN). The guys were holding Mardi Gras beads out to women yelling the obligatory "Show us your tits!" And the women--get this--were showing them their tits! And it's October! You want to grab these people by the ears and tell them that the missed the party by EIGHT MONTHS!! Come back in February and "show us your tits" will have the appropriate context it so richly deserves.

It seems to me that New Orleans has a totally unique heritage and architecture at this time in America. They're our Quebec City--an anomaly that, completely by luck or accident, has survived with a singular character and personality. Rather than treat it with respect, they've taken one aspect of their rich history (DUDE!! PARTY!!!) and whored themselves out for the tourist bucks with unusual enthusiasm. You only need to look in the eyes of a NOPD officer driving through the Bourbon Street crowd to see that there's something really wrong. It's clear there's something he wants to do to make his city a better place--arrest these idiots. And he can't. It's very sad.

On the drive north into Louisiana today, we saw a lot of signs posted along the roadway. There were in blue and had DUKE across them and they would be oh-so-easy to blow off as basketball posters until you realize you're not in North Carolina, you're in Louisiana and those are signs someone has posted to elect David Duke to Congress. You may remember David Duke as the formerly imprisoned head of the Ku Klux Klan who came dangerously close to being a legitimate politician here a few years back. Anyway, the signs weren't for this year's election, but you would think somebody would look up, see that their highway was still covered in Neo-Nazi paraphenalia and be..oh, embarrassed. It might occur to that person to take the shit down and try to forget it ever happened. Not so in Louisiana. So we drove by the signs and made our way up to McComb, Mississippi.

McComb, Mississippi is a town of about 13,000 people near the Louisiana border. It has a Wal-Mart and a bowling alley and a historic downtown district that is "historic" because the word "decrepit" does not make McComb eligible for the state's revitalization program. We stopped for lunch, in an act of pure optimism, at a place called the Broadway Deli. Trust me, we were very hungry. The menu was spelled out in the usual peg-board letters popular in actual delicatessens in places with actual Jews. Anyway, at the top of the menu, below "Welcome to the Broadway Deli" were the words "It's all about Jesus."

How, you may ask, is this possible? Wouldn't the laws of physics prevent the words "Deli" and "Jesus" from appearing on the same menu at the same time? Don't they automatically cancel each other out, possibly creating the kind of space/time wormhole that would take care of McComb, Mississippi permanently? Apparently, that is not the case, so my friend and I spent a half-hour eating our sandwiches and asking ourselves, "What would Jesus tip?"

We drove back through Kentwood, Louisiana--the hometown of Britney Spears. The sign was, as you would expect, understated and tasteful. We also saw Hammond, the home of Southeastern Louisiana University. Hammond, in a word, rocked. Love Hammond. Hammond was like the cool Louisiana town that seemed to want to learn something from the rest of the world. Cool coffeehouses, restaurants, and bars. Amazing old preserved buildings put to new use without being destroyed. A downtown district that was decidedly not dying or dead. I know nothing about the people or the university or the history. They could, for all I know, be David Duke's core constituency. Hammond gets two thumbs way up from me.

Now, a thought from the town of Covington, at the north end of the Lake Ponchatrain Causeway. The Causeway is a 24 mile long bridge that spans Lake Ponchatrain that was, until the Big Dig in Boston, the largest feat of civil engineering in America. It is a testament to man's ingenuity and, due to the total lack of any overhead lighting, his faith. Anyway, in Covington is the huge strip of national brands that I've seen in every medium-sized town with a mile of formerly cheap land. You could probably drive twenty minutes from wherever you are and see the exact same lineup in almost the same order. Say them with me now--Wal-Mart, Home Depot, TGI Friday's, Outback Steakhouse, Ruby Tuesday's, Applebee's, Kinko's. The people in Covington have a genuinely historic district where they can go for alternative, locally owned businesses and theatres. Thanks to the Causeway traffic, their downtown won't die and they'll never lose this little gem unless they want to.

In the window of one of these stores, amongst boutique clothing places and art galleries, lies an old holdover from Covington's "historic" days. In crumbling yellow paint, the window reads:

Roy's Knife and Archery Shop
...And We Do Sell Guns!

Isn't that great? Knives and bows and arrows...but they DO sell guns! They don't OVER-diversify their stock, keeping it firmly within a tight range of lethal weaponry. But, they don't want to alienate customers who like to shoot--but not stab or bowhunt. Voila, compromise.

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow in Baton Rouge.

A special congratulations to my mother Toni, who tomorrow receives the Hannah G. Solomon award for Public Service from the National Council of Jewish Women. If you see her, make sure she's incredibly embarrassed by all the attention. She loves it, really.

Really.

Boy Scouts Suck

Current Waffle House count: 37

Ahhh...clean laundry. Nothing like it. The New Orleans Radisson has the single worst laundry room I've ever seen. You have to buy detergent by calling housekeeping instead of from a vending machine, there's no change machine (which means a trip down to the front desk), dryers are $1.25 a cycle, and when they're running the laundry room becomes a sauna so thick that nothing ever dries. Plus, the washers take an hour. It's a nightmare.

On the other hand, I have clean shirts.

Last night, we watched Game 1 of the World Series in the shadow of the Louisiana Superdome, where the Syracuse Orangemen won their first national championship and where my brother's beloved New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl. The Hyatt's sports bar, "Hyttops" is every bit as fun as its name. Taking my third sip of beer, I felt something on my tongue that wasn't beer--I chose not to swallow the beer. Wise, as the foreign object was a shard of broken glass. I am now officially a hypochondriac for the next week. Every single ache or twinge is a result of swallowing broken glass. I'm absolutely positive that I have an entire window inside of me at this point--probably a cheap, drafty one without any energy efficency.

The games... What can you say about some of the greatest moments in Red Sox history? Can't wait for the next one.

We went back to Atmore, AL yesterday to shoot Williams Station Day, their annual street fair/tribute to the railroad. There were arts and crafts tents, barbeque, and music tents with names like the "Atmore Fiddlers' Convention." The barbeque was acceptable but not exceptional, the music was great. I know nothing about arts and crafts, so I can't really judge. I didn't buy anything, if that tells you something.

As we talk to people, one of our standard questions is "What would you change about your town?" It amazes me how often the answer is, "We need a Wal-Mart." Everyone just wants a place to buy CDs and clothes. They know it'll kill whatever businesses are left in their town, but they hate driving to Pensacola all the time. It's a love/hate relationship, and they know it. I hope Sam Walton in spinning like a rotisserie chicken in Hell.

The mayor took a few minutes from holding court to talk with us. Atmore, he says, will be thrilled to host a TV show. He's not a professional politician, of course, despite being mayor for twenty years. He doesn't think that highly of reality TV. And folks around town are feeling like after Hurricane Ivan, they could use some dignity. Nevertheless, he would love to have our money. Tell me the man's not a professional.

The coffeehouse siren was plying her strawberry smoothies at her own tent and praying for 5:00. She has absolutely no interest in me. Nothing between us whatsoever. I'm completely head over heels at her total indifference.

In a previous post, I mentioned the relative scarcity of Bush-Cheney propaganda. Well, at the fair, Republican congressional candidate Jo Bonner had a tent to pass out balloons and stickers and posters. Every single white person on the street took something. It was an elephant parade. For the record, Jo Bonner voted for a flag burning amendment, scores 0% on NARAL's record, 17% by the NEA, and 97% by the US Chamber of Commerce. This is a bad man.

A fourteen year old in a Boy Scout uniform asked us if we were really from the TV. He liked living in Atmore, he said, but really wanted a Wal-Mart. We asked him who some of his favorite bands were, and he literally could not name one. He insisted that he HAD favorites, but just couldn't think of any. Fine. Chalk it up to being camera shy. Then he asked if we were liberal or conservative.

This was the first time anyone has brought up politics with us--we didn't know how to cope with the question. However, since this kid was five-foot-two and fourteen years old, we figured honesty probably wasn't going to get us into too much trouble. Liberal, we told him. He asked why we weren't voting for President Bush. Honestly, the list is huge. The mind reels with possibilities when someone asks you a question like that. For the sake of expediency, the first thing that came to mind was Iraq. The Boy Scout rolled his eyes and said, "You must be one of those people who are against the war." He said it as though there were only a few of us who would dare take that position and we needed to be hunted down and marked. Secondly, we mentioned the economy. The Boy Scout who a moment ago could not remember the name of his favorite bands started spouting Heritage Foundation statistics at me. We begged off the discussion before I earned a homicide merit badge.

One of the nice things about Williams Station Day was that the town seemed to really come together. It was one of the most integrated places I've seen in the south, not just by the presence of diversity, but by the interaction of people. Even if it's a sham and things are really lousy, it made me like Atmore even more than I had before.

We're off to Amite and Independence, Louisiana tomorrow. I'm sure that something will happen then.

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

Current Waffle House Count: 35
Number of...numbers: Infinite

We spent all of today in the car, bouncing from city to city. The highlight was driving down to Bayou La Batre, a shrimping community that was really amazing to see. You may remember Bayou La Batre as the hometown of Bubba Blue, Forrest Gump's best buddy. Now it's 30% Cambodian. Of course, Bubba was an African-American. If he had been Cambodian, his tour with Forrest in Vietnam might have been different.

From there, we went down to Dauphin Island, a beach island in the Gulf that was hit by Ivan worse than anyplace we've been so far. There were a ton of destroyed houses, but more than that was the beach. The beach was on the houses, and on the road. The sand and debris were in drifts over ten feet high on the sides of the island's only road. Zowie.

We also went to Foley, Alabama, Daphne, Fairhope, Gautier, Mississippi, Ocean Springs, and Lucedale. None of them were good for the show. The stratospheric increase in Waffle Houses is due to our trip down AL-98. You'll never want for a waffle on AL-98.

There was more, of course, and I'll get to it a bit later. Tomorrow we're going back to Atmore--they have an annual town celebration centered around their train history called Williams Station Day. We're going to shoot it and meet more people. Maybe I'll run into the future ex-Mrs. Meltzer. Then we have to rush to New Orleans in time to watch a baseball game. Some team I like is playing tomorrow night. Prediction: Cards in four.

Go ahead, Boston. Prove me wrong.

Expect slow posting until Sunday.

Son of Sam's Club

Current Waffle House Count: 22
Number of prisons in north Florida I've passed (in 400 miles) : 9
Number of pieces that Pensacola, Florida is in: 1,000,000,000

So it turns out the Red Sox have still not lost to the Yankees. Some people are telling me to stop worrying. They are even saying that the Sox have won the AL pennant. I am determined to fully research this and I will get back to you as soon as I have definite proof one way or the other.

I am currently at a very nice hotel in Point Clear, Alabama. There were a lot of lousy towns between Monticello, FL and here--Marianna, Clearview, Blountstown. We were in Milton, FL for a while. It has a nice old courthouse square with a beautiful old restored theater. Unfortunately, the stores are all empty. All of them. The only storefronts that are occupied are filled with county offices and country officers. Hurricane Ivan did some damage there--one building was turned into a big pile of bricks on the sidewalk. Somehow, in the middle of economic malaise and a weather emergency, they decided to spend money to keep building a big war memorial on the side of the river. It is supposed to be reminiscent of the Vietnam memorial, with the each of the five services represented on black marble, and slabs surrounding the park for each war. Each slab has the timeline of its war carved into it. “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 1968.” “Saddam Hussein Captured, 2003” It was oddly unmoving, until you see that there are six empty slabs after “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Those, I imagine, are for the Bush Wing of the memorial.

There have been a ton of towns like Milton with dead downtowns. When you talk to the people, every one of them has the same song to sing. The economy was bad, but they were getting by, a Wal-Mart opens, then every business in downtown died. Just like that. We drive into an area and see a Wal-Mart, chances are the downtown is empty. That's that. We've heard this almost ten times. It’s like a pattern or something. Maybe there's a lesson here.

After Milton, we ended up in Destin, FL for the night before heading north into Alabama, a path that took us along the Gulf coast through Pensacola. Pensacola has been quickly re-arranged into piles of lumber along the roadsides. The city is literally a disaster area. I have lost count of the number of trucks hauling dead trees I’ve seen in the last two days, and those are just the trees that someone has managed to pick up. There are thousands along the side of every road, buildings with one wall standing. We saw an immense empty lot used to dump debris. It was full, stacked twenty-plus feet deep with what used to be Pensacola.

Later, we spent the day in Atmore, Alabama and I have to say it is quite a place. It's a small town whose main employer was Vanity Fair lingerie until about four years ago, when the plant was outsourced to someplace in Asia. They were hanging on as best they could and doing pretty well until Hurricane Ivan came along. Ivan knocked the hell out of Atmore.

There is a huge church steeple lying in pieces in the church parking lot near Atmore’s downtown. There are store facades missing half their siding and every third window is covered with plywood. Nevertheless, it’s among my favorites of the cities I've visited, for several reasons:

1. Very, very few Bush-Cheney signs. Compared to the other places.
2. I’m totally smitten with the twenty-something proprietress of the local coffeehouse, a great art gallery/coffee place. Totally. Wow.
3. Unbelievable barbeque. Gold's BBQ. Highly recommended.
4. The Chamber of Commerce gave me a T-shirt.
5. The Red Sox appear to have won the American League pennant.

There are many other reasons, but those made it a very good day.

The coffeehouse beauty was nervous about being interviewed on camera. She joked that she was worried that the camera would take her soul. I assured her that it couldn't, as it had already taken mine. That got a laugh, and I was in love. Ah, to be young and in Alabama...

More later. I have to sleep...

Yawn...

Ummmm....yeah.

Sox in seven. Greatest comeback in sports history, new benchmark for the greatest rivalry in sports, first AL pennant since I was thirteen.

Other than that not much going on.

It kills me that I watched the game in hotel room in Destin, Florida. It kills me even more that I will be watching the World Series from even smaller towns in Alabama and Louisiana. I should be watching with my father or brother in the northeast.

Here's the thing, though...

Maybe in order for the Red Sox to keep winning, I have to watch these games alone in hotel rooms in the South. Maybe that's the price of their world title. If that's the case (and that explanation is as good as any) then I have to hold up my end of the bargain. I suffer for my team.

Thank you to everyone who called to celebrate with me. So many calls overlapped, but I think I got to everyone eventually. I'll be on my cell for each and every World Series game, no matter where I am.

As far as traveling, today was pretty much useless. No insights into humanity, nothing. More later...

Game What?!?!?

Holy...fucking...shit...

Game 7.

I am going to die in some bar in Nowhere, Florida watching Game 7.

Game 7.

Holy...fucking...shit...

An Unfinished House Divided

Current Waffle House Count: 7
Number of people who have told me that some of their best friends are black: 1

First off, sorry for the weird post. There was no internet access in Perry, not even via phone. You see, at our motel the phones are hardwired into the walls and the cables hardwired into the phones. Lots of people passing through Perry who like to steal the phones, I suppose. So, no post. I wrote it last night and copied it into the blog, which didn't recognize apostrophes. Just in case you thought I was STILL watching the Sox at 4 this afternoon.

Well, let's see... The Red Sox won, and I got to see the last five innings in Perry after being unable to get a single non-religious radio signal for two hours on the way. It was brutal. Nevertheless, David Ortiz remains King of the World for another night. This is unreal. I think the only reason they're winning is because God can't find me to smack me around. I'll keep moving as long as I have to...

We cruised through Perry this morning. For a town with a charming courthouse square, it was a bit short on charm. The courthouse was modern (read: ugly) and a great deal of the storefronts in the square had been abandoned. A quick perusal of the Yellow Pages yielded no fewer than six bail bondsmen in town, so I guess some businesses are booming. We did not even get out of the car.

On to Monticello. Monticello is a town of about 3,000 built around a rotary, with four streets going off in opposite directions. It's a beautiful little town, with lots of people lining up to tell us how beautiful it is and how wonderful the people are. The majority of the main street seems to be owned by one woman who I might compare to a skinny, smiling Boss Hogg. She could not have been nicer--ebullient, generous, and kind--and every time you mentioned her name to someone, they kept smiling, but it was a determined smile. Like you just stuck a knife between their ribs, but damn it if that was going to keep them from smiling.

One guy we talked to is living in a totally different world from the rest of us. He moved here a few years ago, via the Bronx and Miami Beach, and appears to be the only Jew in Monticello. He's spent over a year and a half rehabbing an immense Victorian mansion. By rehabbing, I mean "living in sawdust." I don't know how the building remains standing. It's like an antique store that is surrounded by artfully placed kindling. The guy could not have been nicer. He's dying to show people why he fell in love with Monticello. He's dying to finish the house. He will never finish the house. He will never finish the house because he exists outside of the United States economy. Every single thing he's getting for the house, from materials to repair labor, he's getting through a barter system. He insists that it's cheaper and more efficient than actual money. He's very convincing. He's never going to finish the house.

There's a very interesting syndrome down here. If you ask white people how everyone gets along, you won't find one who tells you things are anything other than King's Dream come to life. The African-Americans seem to have another story to tell.

We went down ML King, Jr. Blvd for that perspective. The white manager of "the projects" (what everyone called them, even though they aren't projects, just privately-owned apartments) called us over as soon as he saw us get out of our car. It seems he hasn't seen too many other white people around and thought we might be lost. This is THREE BLOCKS AWAY from the downtown area.

Anyhow, the folks there were very friendly, camera-shy, and very sure that a network TV makeover show could help out their neighborhood. Specifically, by building their kids a playground. Over and over, the kids said they needed a playground because all there was to do is eat, drink, and sit out on the steps. One girl who could not have been more than eight years old followed us out to our car and asked if the network was going to build her a playground. The network, who can't even program a decent Monday night, is literally this girl's only chance at a playground. I wanted to build her a playground right then and there. I wanted to open up a vein and bleed into the ground, hoping a playground would grow there for her. If the network does not pick Monticello, she's not getting it. Ever. The network will probably not pick Monticello.

Welcome to the Battleground...

Current Waffle House count: 6
Number of people suggesting I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior: 1

You�ll have to excuse the sloppiness of this entry�it�s the top of the 13th inning, David Ortiz just safely stole a base but was called out, Gary Sheffield reached first on a strikeout, and I�m typing while banging my head against the wall.

It would probably be better for me to change the names of the people and places I�m visiting, but what the hell. Most of it�s true anyway, and nothing is libelous.

A couple of general points�they sure do like George W. Bush here in north Florida. There are signs and bumpers stickers for him everywhere, but despite their loathsome political views the people couldn�t be nicer. It�s kind of the exact opposite of LA, where the people vote liberal but will leave a body in the street for other folks to steer around all night. Another thing: these political ads. I haven�t seen a single one because neither candidate will ever run one in the state of California. They won�t, either, unless they�re forced by some weird dead uncle to spend like a maniac to inherit an even LARGER fortune. That�s unlikely, though, I�ll admit. In any case, these ads are nasty. Mean. Dirty. The Democrat ads, though, have the virtue of being true. I can�t explain how any ad like the ones I�m seeing would convince anyone to vote Republican. Maybe from a �Clockwork Orange� system of repetition, submission, and acceptance. They�re batshit crazy.

We started today in Green Cove Springs, a town of about 7,000 people thirty miles south of Jacksonville. There was a block that would be perfect for the show, but it�s surrounded by a noisy, modern strip-mall breeding ground.

Green Cove Springs is built on the St. John�s River and is the site of four immense sulphur pools that were used at the turn of the century as a dubious cure-all. However, after all the tourism in Florida moved east with the railroad, the town built over the pools�including city hall, which has a distinct tilt, as half of it is sinking into a deep bog that reeks of rotting eggs. They were in the process of moving to a new city hall, a beautiful building that helps make the town totally unusable for the show. We spent some time with the extremely generous city manager, who told us in no uncertain terms that the people of his town do not like change and maybe we should try some of the other small towns nearby. It took an hour-long meeting in a building reeking of sulphur to tell us this. We left by 11:00am.

We moved on to Starke, a bigger city west of Green Cove Springs. It�s bigger in population by a couple thousand. Actually, that�s an unfair comparison, as Starke�s population number is boosted by the thousand-plus people who serve as guests in the maximum-security prison nearby. It has a death row, which people in Starke would rather not be known for. Sorry, guys. You�ve got an electric chair and a death chamber�might as well put it on the posters.

The head of the Chamber of Commerce met with us and introduced us to�well, everybody. We went up and down their main street and talked to every merchant. Their comments all had a Stepford-like consistency�Starke is a great town, there�s not enough for kids to do, but we should definitely make a TV show there. The highlights included the owner of the local lunch counter, who showed us her 3,000 teddy bears (no kidding), the florist who insisted we turn off the camera to tell us about a couple of male business partners who are �very, very close, need I say more�, and the barber who refused to speak to the camera and scared the hell out of me by not speaking more than one word per sentence.

Despite the fact that Starke is over 30% African-American, none of them seemed to live or work downtown. We eventually found a small salon off the highway run by an amazing young woman, a single mother and small business owner who goes to school for nursing and, with a friend, runs a self-funded and self-made mentoring program for girls in the area. She�s a saint.

We went to the only bar in town to watch a couple innings (the 2nd and 3rd) of the Sox game, then decided to leave to go to Perry. Perry, we�ve been told in several cities now, has a checkered racial past. Checkered in the sense that someone last year was busted for refusing to desegregate his bar. Checkered in the sense that one hotel owner refused to let black people in his swimming pool. That kind of checkered.

Anyway, a lot more ahead. I�ll probably remember more about today after my brain heals. Later�

17 Weeks to the Super Bowl!

So we're in Jacksonville now, real travels to commence tomorrow. The next Super Bowl is apparently being held here. I wouldn't have known, except that every inch of available signage space is pointing it out. Seventeen weeks to the Super Bowl! Super Bowl 2005 in Jacksonville! Jacksonville welcomes the Super Bowl!

One football game, that will certainly include not a single team from this state, seems to be all that this town has to look forward to. It doesn't even have the hotel space--there are going to be people staying in Georgia to watch the game here. Too bad.

Anyway, the hotel is nice, there are a couple of bars nearby and I think one of them might have Game 4 on. It'll be fitting to finish the season this way--as Bart Giamatti said, "I wrote a few things this last summer, this summer that did not last, nothing grand but some things, and yet that work was just camouflage." I'll be watching my summer end here, amid the camouflage of another reality show.

I Knew She Was Sleeping

So, I actually have a reason for being up late for a change. In a couple of hours I am getting on a plane to Jacksonville to start two weeks traveling through the deep South. I'll be casting for a reality TV show that is going to regret the fact that they forgot to make me sign the Non-Disclosure Agreement they're always yammering about.

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to document my time through the red states and share with you--my family, my friends, and anyone who searches for Green Cove Springs, Florida on Google.

More later...