new orleans, bourbon st.

twentysomething because im here in my room with two twentysomethings
and all ive gotta say is thank you Blogger. thank you.

today’s french quarter pics + memphis pics + graceland pics

yes i paid $6 just to park. yes i stayed at a motel about two blocks away. yes i know he stole the black mans music. yes i believe hes the king of rock n roll. and yes i believe rock n roll will save yr soul.

i dont know what i expected but i sure didnt get it.

i got way more. i got that elvis was a sweet ass interior designer. 70s everythings were insanely cool. shag carpet on the walls and ceilings. carpet on the floor of the kitchen. crazy paintings. crazy wood. crazy monkeys everywhere.

i like that they dont show you the upstairs. but as cool as it is its sorta small. hell my sister’s got a bigger house.

no she doesnt have a raquetball court in the back and horses and a pool but as for the house, its not as big as i expected. nothing is. not even the plane is as big as i thought.

but the biggest thing that struck me is our mortality. you can be the hugest star in the world who can charge $6 for parking and $55 for the VIP treatment on the tour (cheapskates like me paid $27), you can have tons of cars, the hottest wife, the hottest daughter, three tvs like the president, kickass clothes, and the best drugs money can buy

but you still end up wormmeat under the ground.

i know elvis loved his momma but the horses have more room to spread out than dead elvis. dead elvis should have a plot for himself. dead elvis should be way out there in the field. fucker has so many gold records they dont even know what to do with em all and all he ends up is dirt in the ground.

sorta made me think that all of this is for naught.

i listen to his music every day. ive got sirius and i listen to him on the sirius elvis channel. i took a picture of the sirius studio across the street from graceland and thats tiny too.

the property is big but, i dont know. the king should have a castle shouldnt he?

and elvis presley blvd is sorta crappy. its poor. the gas stations are going out of business. theres not much very cool happening around it. i dont know man, i think i understand why lisa marie sold 85 per cent of everything and lives in hollywood and drinks.

i feel like selling 85 per cent of everything and moving to hollywood and drinking.

now im in a gentrified sandwhich coffee yuppie internet cafe eating a $8 sandwich right next to sun studios.

im glad i didnt get a room here for two days. im glad im going to new orleans tonight.

im glad im not the king of rock n roll dead in the ground having people take pictures of my head stone while some creepy dude takes pictures of the people.

im glad i sold my soul to the angels.

im glad i will remodel my house to look exactly like the inside of graceland when i grow up.

im glad i can cross this off the list.

tent revival, friday night

in an abandonded shopping mall parking lot

either the Lord or the Devil has been showing me the most amazing bugs in each of my last three motel rooms. i had cockroaches in maryland, a cricket so big in virginia it had a top hat and a bow tie, and last night in tennessee i had drunk gnats.

the devil takes these road trips with me. hes a pretty good travel partner. he ties to make me fall asleep on the wheel. he spots out all the rednecks and white trash. he reminds me how easy it is to get laid and then makes all the girls i meet on the road married or dating or have terrible breath.

last night we met a check out chick at the wall mart and he was all oh no you wont and i was all watch me fucker.

and she said im so bored tonight and i said lemme take you to the chinese buffett down the street and she was all that place is horrible and i said what do you expect in central tennessee?

and she said where are you from and i said alaska and she said nah uh and i was all yes huh and the devil and her friend and her were all laughing and i told them about my trip around the world and they were all wow and i said yeah but i get so lonely out on the road and the devil tries to get me to get drunk alone on my room and do crazy things and id really like to take you somewhere nice.

and the girl was white as can be so you could see her blush and she said nothing and her friend tapped out while giggling and she said we dont really date customers and i said i will return this laundry detergent and these banannas and she said then youd be a returning customer and we laughed and she smiled the most snaggle tooth smile youve ever seen and my thing shrunk right up into my belly so when she said she couldnt i didnt ask her that magical third time and i ran to the gas station and got drunk while trying to watch Lost on my computer but the devil had fucked with the hi speed internet wifi

so i took a bath and listened to juliette lewis as i did my laundry

which he wouldnt let dry.

but it rained and i listened to it rain and i loved it so much he made it stop raining.

and now im in the loneliest mall in the country. 33% occupancy. ive been eating in the food court. chick-fil-a nuggets which are delicious and the devil hates that i can update with this EVDO card so he has whispered in the ear of all 19 security guards here that im up to no good and one of them just said sir you cannot plug your computer into the wall socket. and i said why. and he said its not for customers and i said youve got like 20 customers in this entire mall and youre gonna piss one of them off.

and he said im sorry but its the rule. and i said when i leave your mall will lose 5 per cent of its customers. your customers pay your salary. and he said i dont have a salary i get paid by the hour. and i said do you know which way north is? and he said i think its over there. and i said do you know your ass from a hole in the ground? and he spoke into his walkie talkie and now theres finally something going on in this fucking mall. and im not so lonely any more.

From: Tony’s Mom
Subj: So What’s Your Agenda Today

What is your route? Did you get an early start?

Dear Mom,

almost every day you ask me these questions and i know youre tracking me via your map at work and i know youre worried and i know you love me, but i can no longer answer these questions.

i am an undercover agent for the xbi. not only that but im a somewhat popular blogger. and on top of that im a wandering soul.

the purpose of this trip is multi-layered and part of that involves the lack of plans. so far the plans, routes, and schedules of this trip have only acted as a sort of a wet blanket to me.

yes it was great seeing you and going to the cubs game and going to the bears game and for those things i needed to tell you and others where i would be and when. but secretly i didnt like Having to be anywhere or Having to do anything.

now that im on the home stretch i really dont want to know whats going on nor do i want to plan anything. i hate that i even have a semi plan. when i was in europe i enjoyed getting off one train and getting on the next train whereever it was going.

infact when Chris and i were together in Frisco we’d often ride the muni to whereever it was going and get off whenever we saw something interesting. its one reason i love her so much – because she understands that free spirit of adventure and randomness.

i understand that you like to plan things out but that doesnt work for me. i saw a park today called Hungry Mother Park. if i was truly free i would have gone to that park but i have some weird thing in me that was saying “you have to try to be in Memphis by tomorrow.” but why do i have to be in Memphis by tomorrow? no one is waiting for me, Elvis aint going no where, ive got no hotties there awaiting me.

but i didnt explore that part of Tennessee or Virginia or wherever i was because i still havent become truly free. if theres a purpose of this trip it is to meander like the butterfly does: drunkenly, stupidly, with the aid of nature.

the only thing i need to do is be home by Oct 20th because thats when anna kournikova will be in LA and she wants to give me a special birthday gift, but as great as she is, if im having a great time somewhere else and its not costing me too much money, i might not be in LA by then.

again, i know you mean well and you just want to know, but i dont want to know. in fact i dont even want to think about it. i dont even want to know what road im on or know what town im approaching. i just want to watch the midget horses eat grass and the fat cows poop. i want to see the leaves change colors while listening to howard stern talk to strippers who are peeing on dwarfs in motel rooms. i know you dont want to hear this, but I want to be in motel rooms as strippers are peeing on dwarfs and i wont get that chance if im speeding in and out of towns because i have some random schedule.

so heres what you should do. you should read this blog. most of it is lies but the places are generally correct. or you can ask me where i just was. i dont mind talking about the past. the past isnt all that fascinating, but it’s helpful for your map.

i love you dearly. today howard stern asked nba basketball player Doug Christie whose wife has him on a short leash if the Nazis had a gun to his head would he choose that they shoot his wife or his mother. Doug said they should shoot his wife, which of course made her cry, even though it was just speculative and ridiculous, but Doug and I have that in common, our mommas come first.

which is why my future wives are lucky that the Nazis are no longer in power.

Anyways i will do many things that you wont like: i will drive late at night, i will drink when offered drink, i will smoke when offered smoke, and i will watch my female fans dance on my bed when they invite themselves into my room, and i will eat fast food high in transfats. other than that, anything goes. im sorry but at 113 going on 114 i owe that sort of lifestyle to my readers, who basically paid for the car that im driving.

and yes i would have the Nazis shoot them instead of you, but until then they deserve to read fun tales from the road because no one at Pajamas Media care as much about them as i do. until that changes, it’s my duty to rock out with my, uh, laptop out.

Go Bears,

Tony

most people dont know that i have a brother. i do. hes xbi, but more specifically east coast xbi, which is why i keep it on the dippty down low.

dc is a freaky place because everyone is army navy secret service pentagon fbi cia and of course xbi. if you know how to read license plates your mind will blow when you get around the beltway and the reason i had to take yesterday off from writing is centered around that so lets just move on to another subject.

most people dont know that real close to the white house is dc’s chinatown. shit i cant really talk about that either so…

the thing i liked the best about this trip back to my birthplace was it was hot. it was 90 degrees friends. i wanted to see thomas jefferson’s memorial because there are a lot of overlooked memorials and his is probably the most overlooked because its just him standing up in a big ass dome.

i also like his memorial because he was really the only president that not only owned slaves but regularily got it on with them while writing about how every man should be free in america. the hypocracy and paradox is still evident today in the US and i just wanted to pop in his monument to get some sweet vibes from that energy.

but before i went in i noticed that my balls were sweating like a bitch because it was not just hot but also humid due to the oncoming storm that was a day away. so i pulled into an abandonded parking lot that would have been filled if it was the summer and i took off my pants in my car and underwear and put on a fresh pair of boxers and my shorts.

of course right at that moment a metra subway line comes roaring out of nowhere and everyone on the train got to see my better half. i sorta laughed for a sec when another train going the other direction flew out of a tunnel.

i put my shorts on and drove out of there in fear that i would be busted for exposing myself to the world.

after i met my bro at his current stakeout we had dinner and drinks and caught up a little and then i hit the road south by southwest on my way back home. after all this time heading east today i turned the corner.

as always i got a little drowsy right when i started driving, which made sense after a dinner of crab cakes and a tall glass of beer, but a giant coke and a small order of mcdonalds fries picked me up again and i was good. i drove all the way to right outside roanoke virginia where i am now for the night.

its 444am, im bummed i missed Lost but stoked that ABC will have it online tomorrow night when i hope to be close to memphis TN. at $50 a night i would stay here an extra day just to write and work but theres bugs crawling all over the walls – not a lot – just three, and the woods are scary, and they dont have a hot tub.

and even though clipper girl called me today from a victoria secrets asking me what color thigh highs id like to see her in on my return, purple, i wouldnt mind being on the road for about fifteen more months.

i have cockroaches in my suite. not so sweet. the car dude tried to rip me off and sell me struts and a tune up and an oil change and put a battery in there without my ok. said he fixed the horn but he didnt fix the horn.

all i know is somehow i got out of there for $134 with a new battery which is outrageous but the car runs fine and im done. aj knew the dude was badnews and she was right.

last night she and i and danette all went to this great ethiopean place in the village. shes into all these exotic foods. aka not mcdonalds. so i suggested ethiopean cuz you get to eat with your hands. the service was as slow as they expected which was super weird cuz its a tiny place. but the food was kickass. afterwards we went to this really great dessert place and saw some dudes straight outta the sopranos. but when theyre real theyre scarier.

aj was super good to me while i was in ny. let me sleep in her bed. gave me keys to her pad. gave me her latest poetry book. and today i believe is danettes 24th birthday so happy birthday baby.

i got a shitton of work done at the fish n chips place as i waited for my car to get fixed. it really shouldnt take three hours to get a battery installed but thats how you work when you want me to report you to AAA.

got on the bridge as per AJs instructions, got on the other bridge, then drove through jersey and then delaware. tolls like mad. i musta paid $20 in tolls. when im president that shits outlawed. all through the west theres no tolls. except on a few bridges like the bay bridge and the golden gate. but those seriously do need maintence all the time. some of these roads were like five miles pay me.

i took a little nap about an hour into my drive outta ny cuz i was so stressed from the auto dude and had to relax but you really cant relax sleeping in a car after youve been driving cuz you dream that youre driving and sleeping. ps i hate dreams.

so here i am in baltimore or anapolis or somewhere. not really sure, all the hotels were super expensive but this was the cheapest at $114. i dont care though. i jsut want to wake up early and take in some of the sights for you then post the pics and move on to the dirty south.

while at the fish n chips the people there said i really should drive through mississippi even though everyone i know says stay away. and i dont care if i die so why not. when i dissed mississip the bartender pulled out his drivers liscense and there it was, mississip. he says dont believe the hype, that its beautiful. and definately the way to go when going to new orleans. a woman at the bar agreed and she used to live in memphis which is where im pointed to.

to get there i have to drive through knoxville which is where Philips used to be headquartered. i still have sore feelings about that company cuz they layed me off a while back and didnt do it very nicely. they tried to bring up all this shit that wasnt even true. “we understand you own Lick.com” shit i wish i said. bullshit like that. it was my first big job after college. i guess it taught me to expect some crappy crap in life.

like mechanics who like to cheat, and suites that arent so suite, and chicks who dont wanna play hide the salami, and congressmen who run and hide to rehab when theyve been representing a party who always seems to be super dirty and shady but never seems to get busted for it. the other day drudge said it was the boys’ fault.

anyways enough politics, im in dc now, just art and love and music.

my car wont start

so im here at a local fish and chips place listening to Brit Rock and not watching the AL playoffs. instead im working on LAist stories and uploading videos on a site a commentor recommended called JumpCut, which it appears was recently aquired by Yahoo.

I wrote YouTube and asked them why my videos were always out of sync and they said it had something to do with Codecs, but JumpCut seems to have no problem turning my Canon generated content to proper web videos, so Jump Cut it is.

the Shell Station that AAA towed me to got very bad ratings by AJ who said that they ripped her off, so whereever you are say a little prayer for your boy because its not like im made outta money and these dudes sorta have me over a barrel so to speak.

if i can get out of here by 4:20 i hope to make it to my birthplace by 9pm. the problem seems to be electrical as the battery and alternator are fine. i knew something fishy was going on when i couldnt honk my horn, a problem in ny lemme tell ya.

yesterday i worked till 2pm, then took the subway to central park, then walked around and took pictures like a tourist of pretty much everything. theyve got rocks in central park. i dont know if man put them or God, but theyre there and its good because some people would rather sit on rocks than on the soft green grass. i guess thats one of the nice things about this city, for those who want to sit on hard rocks, they can, for those who want to sit on soft grass they can, and for those of us who like to sit on park benches with the old men we got that going for us too.

i like this fish n chippery because they dont bother you when youre sitting there typing your heart away. they figure if you need something you’ll say something.

i also like it that they have a plastic tomato for the catsup.

at this point i sorta wish i had stolen that corvette back in iowa.

central park

free wifi in central park