after driving through east texas which isnt as boring as people would have you believe, i made it into Austin just in time for beer hour at the Hillldale residence.

the lovely couple greeted me with a few rounds of buckshot from their swinging chair on the porch of their new home as the dog yapped and i yelled CLINTON WAS FRAMED, CLINTON WAS FRAMED! until they stopped. there were all “tony?” and i said yes and they fired some more.

when they ran out of ammo i held up cartons of cigarretes and bags of porn. they shot the smokes right out of my hand but spared the smut and when the dust settled they were all oooooh THAT tony! and i was allowed inside the compound.

we went to their neighbor’s home for a downhomed catered bbq and drank some of their beer as we talked to yuppies and got bitten by texas sized mosquitoes. i miss dan and sarah and if they were my neighbors id be over at their house all the time. unfortunately they live way the hell down here where even in rocktober the temperature flirts with 90 which is why the ceiling fans were on at 9:30p when we made it to the new Pizza Place near the campus.

we ate we drank some more and we blabbed and gossipped. we probably talked hella shit about you and you and you but then we agreed that we loved all our friends and were lucky to know them.

then we went back home and killed the case of lite beer and watched a little jon stewart and colbert and dan thought he had recorded Lost but alas he didnt. technology!

they have a new dog to go with their new backyard and the little fella (you can call chick dogs fellas) is so happy that she does a gazelle leap every third step as she runs. im sure as a puppy she pissed on those leaps out of happiness but clearly her former owner beat that shit out of her.

adorable though, as is the kitty who hides and quietly judges, i had a great stay with the hilldales and enjoyed barely missing their frogs that hop in the front lawn.

this afternoon i dined with Ms Leah, who many of you know ive been reading since she was 15. as in new york i didnt see an ugly woman in all of austin. i think it has something to do with the water. but like sarah, leah looks better than ever and if i only had a bottle of ruffies and a modeling studio me and dan could make a fortune here.

both of the ladies humoured me with little video interviews and i stopped by the 710 Room to see my bro Asher but he hadnt yet opened up his bar, but Asher if you read this, Leah needs a job and even though she doesnt know what a margarita is, im sure she could learn real quick-like. and i promise to stop by again in March when i return for SXSW.

right now im in Waco. i went by a salvage yard to see if theyd sell me a grill for my car and they clicked through their computer and couldnt find one but told me they could order me one for $47. i said, i know this is a dumb question, but do i really need one? i made it from New Orleans to Austin and now to here and all seems to be well and they were so funny and so rednecky and that shop was so classic and all four guys almost in unison were all “naw.”

god bless em.

it was tough to leave new orleans yesterday. its tough leaving most of the cities that ive visited during this month on the road. i try to stay away from the touristy areas because living in LA i know that those are fake areas of town. the least-like what the city is about.

in LA we have Disneyland and CityWalk and Third Street Promenade and Hollywood & Highland and the Grove. thats not the LA that i love. but i understand why people go there when they come in from out of town. so in new orleans i stayed away from the jackson brewery and that square but when i pulled out of town i spent some money down there and bought a beniget and talked to the people and if this EVDO allows the videos to get up, i will have it on LAist later today.

bukowski taught me not to complain, so i havent been writing about my oil situation. its been better but for some reason my hood has been giving me problems since DC, meaning its been hard to lift it. so i pulled off the grill to get to it and when that started working i noticed that the grill was having a harder time staying on. i thought about using duct tape, and when it flew over my windshield while leaving new orleans and got run over by several dozen cars instantly i thought yeah duct tape would have been a good idea.

and then it started raining and then my mom called and then i realized i had an ice cream cone in my hand and then i realized it was time for me to lose the ice cream cone or get used to not living on earth any more.

needless to say the trip to texas was far from dull.

after the rain ended i saw a sign for Crawfish City. anyone who has been to Lobster Village in baja knows that these towns named after crustations really shouldnt be passed up, even if the bottomdwellers are out of season.

CC was pretty much empty but that allowed me to plug in and dine in peace. the lady was very sweet and offered me the Seafood Special which included deep fried samples of: crab, shrimp, oyster, clam, crawfish, catfish, and frog legs. all for $9.

as much as im a sucker for a great deal, i passed. i was in fucking crawfish city, i wanted crawfish!

the crawfish was sorta crappy but the service was sweet so i drove on.

when chosing accomidations on the road i try not to stay in the city limits as most cities have lots of crime in their downtown regions. so of course i got lost. and of course i found myself at an unknown motel right in the bad part of town. but what i have learned on this trip is throw away your preconceived notions.

not only is this motel really nice, but its cheap ($69) and it was very close to a variety of strip clubs.

the sex show on burbon street turned out to be a comedy of errors ending with my stripper Magic climbing on stage and spinning on the pole and losing her wig. so i was still in search of a quality strip club experience and i got it last night at Treasures.

Treasures is one of the classiest strip joints in vegas and therefore i wasnt surprised when they hassled me at the front door for not having a dress shirt. i was all, hi this is america i dont own a dress shirt. the dude said well if you want to come back here you should invest in one. he let me in. i failed going through the metal detector(!) and he still let me go through. hmmmmm.

once inside i was basically molested by a puerto rican chica who insisted on giving me her phone number and asked me to call her right then so she would have mine and i said ha. she claimed to be rolling on e and showed all signs of being honest but i dont know, when i go to strip clubs i like the stuck up girls. there were a few and i approached them and they danced but i found myself with the ladies with the best outfits. texas, like canada, lets you touch the girls. all over. allll over.

at 2am i was there with the hottest chick there. a shorter version of howard stern’s girlfriend, Beth O, who swore she had two kids but showed no signs. and then showed me the family picture.

side note. any strippers who read this blog: please dont talk about your children. ever. we dont care, we dont wanna know, we’re not going to tip you more, we’re only going to feel horrible that someones mom has to grind up against strangers to pay the bills. every stripper in the place told me about their kids, i even over heard ladies talking about their children. one of the girls told me that they had a rule at Treasures against tattoos and bruises. there should be a more strict rule about talking about babies.

regardless, at 2:05am the club closed and i went home buzzed, smelling great, and sprinkled with sparkles. it was a good night. and today i travel to Austin in hopes of finding a new grill for my trusty car.

on LAist + bonus photo essay

i went to the lower 9th ward today. interviewed some teenage girls. i tried to interview some teenage boys and some adults but they didnt wanna talk. theyve talked enough. theyve been talking for a year.

i drove around for hours taking pictures. it didnt make me cry until i got back to the hotel. the whole time i felt like an uninvited funeral crasher.

normally i can go up and talk to anyone. i know im not up to anything bad. i know that i have people’s best interests at heart. plus im not afraid. ive always wanted to be a reporter. not a writer so much as a reporter. a long time ago i heard that the definition of a reporter is to go somewhere that most people cant go to and tell them what happened. but today i went to new orleans and i understood why i never became a reporter.

i never got that job because a professional, a real pro, the pro i want to be, goes that extra mile. even though she wasnt a pro, yet, when kerri strug hit that vault landing in the olympics with a broken leg, and stuck it, breaking the leg worse, she was being that pro who i yearn to be. today i just didnt have what it took to ask that one extra question, or to ask that one extra person, or take that extra picture.

which isnt to say that i wont do it tomorrow, but today i allowed the circumstances to hinder my job.

but i will tell you what i saw. in a way thats reporting.

what i saw were blocks and blocks and blocks of abandonded and destroyed homes. its hard to say what the condition of some of these homes were before katrina since the 9th isn’t the most affluent neighborhood in new orleans, but we can assume that most of the houses were inhabited. now only a fraction were liveable.

the ladies who would talk to me told me that the worst of the devistation happened over the bridge, so i went there. for some reason i wasnt scared. not even when i stopped my car when i saw a car following me, who then rolled down his window while his partner got out and asked me how much i wanted. i began driving again. mostly because i wanted all he had.

i saw a lot of the FEMA trailers which are little trailer homes given to some by the government. some houses had a trailer in the front yard or in the drive way. a few locations had make-shift trailer communities where there were dozens and dozens of trailers.

although television tells us that the 9th ward is Black and Poor i saw a few neighborhoods that were upper middle class and white or upper middle class and Black. i saw whites in so-called black sections and i saw construction guys and old people and stray cats and lots of rubble everywhere.

on one street every telephone pole had an ad stapled to it for construction or deconstruction. there were insurance ads asking people if they were unhappy with their settlement. there were ads for people who wanted to sell their home. people were trying to rent their home. people offered to gut people’s home.

i saw lots of spraypaint messages on houses telling you how many people were dead inside, when it was checked, and what was done with their pets if they found any.

if there were ever an opportunity for someone to make some money it would be to teach people how to be contractors and builders and real estate people and developers because this part of the south will rise again, its just a question of time, and the person who buys low (it couldnt be much lower than it is now) and sells high will be the winner.

in the meantime there are people all over this town who are hearty and stubborn and bruised but not broken. these are the people who were kicked out by mother nature and the government and came back and stayed here. if ever there was a group of people who you’d want on your team to make this city stronger, they’re right here and theyre beautiful and theyre bright and they’ve already been to the edge and looked down. everyone here got wet. everyone here was baptised. everyone here are now truly saints. you will stand in awe in their presence.

i came back to my hotel room feeling so unworthy. i felt like such a whiner. oh theres bugs in my hotel room oh the drain goes down too slowly oh not enough chicks half my age show me their boobs. whaaaaaa. these people have lost their friends their neighbors their classmates their coworkers and theyd love to drive around the country, theyd love to stay where im at right now. theyd love to have the food i ate in the 9th ward, theyd love to be able to drive to texas tomorrow because they get to not because they have to. and yet those people dont rush the mic to complain, they shy away because there isnt anything to say. look around stranger. thats your story.

i saw several national guard jeeps i saw fewer cops i heard very few hammers.

i did see a newly built home standing next to a ruined shell of a shack. i wasnt sure if it meant progress, racism, classism, or hope. i just clicked a few pictures and moved on because a block away there would be something else that would blow my mind and make me question everything and sure enough i found it. a virgin mary holding a baby jesus across the street from a diner named Happy Days, and Mary had her head ripped off.

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