I'm leavin' Baton Rouge. I've been here for a couple of days doin' what I do...losing money on penny slots, eating pounds of sausage, talkin' tons of trash.
One of things I love about the kinda travelling I do...which usually involves crossing the tracks at some point and moving off the marketing grid...is the signs. There aren't too many things that I find more aesthetically pleasing than signs and labels.
Full bookshelves maybe..
Certainly...live oaks and azaleas...
Signs are hard to beat though...expressive and coded but deliberate...I love 'em.
An old favorite...
It's time to get on now...the sign we're lookin' for this afternoon is Jackson City Limits.
That top sign reminded me of something a colleague sent me today which made me laugh:
ReplyDeletehttp://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crystal_healing
I spent like an hour over there reading and rereading the transcript of Tom cruise's Scientology speech...somehow it seems even crazier written down...period.
Delete"It is the time now. Now is the time, okay? It is, being a Scientologist, people are turning to you, so you better know it. You better know it, and if you don’t, you know, go (sound deleted, appears to be “f*****") learn it. (Laughs) You know? But don’t pretend you know it and, or whatever. It’s like, we’re here to help. (cut)"
Oh, great pics! I think if I was over there driving along I'd be forever crashing into things - it'd be so hard not to be distracted, gawping like an idiot at every eye-catching sign I passed! I like that Que Korner one too. There's a secondhand car sales place not far from me whose sign/name always make me laugh because they too like to substitute 'C' for 'K' (why is that?!) Only thing is, it doesn't quite work when you see they've named the place 'KAR EXKHANGE'. It's tempting to want to have a quiet word with them but they might want to 'exkhange' my teeth for a carefully aimed fist so I think I'll just keep on driving by...
ReplyDeleteK.
Oops - I mean C.
Ha.
DeleteAt the very least they'd probably sell you a car you didn't want or need.
Personally I am all this phenomenon. I'm an Erik...with a K...that is constantly having his name misspelled. My name is misspelled on my business cards and drivers license.
Martha was sweet enough about it (being a smart a**) she used to sometimes call me K when we were kids.
The most catching signs here in Aussie are put out by a company called AMI. Their claim to fame is that they have sexually charged billboards advertising premature male..cough cough.. problems. They are normally HUGE and Bright red on yellow you cant miss them. When they put the first one up in town at a major intersection there was a dozen accidents in the first couple days. They had to take it down so so funny
ReplyDeleteWe had an issue with a local strip club and their billboards. Eventually they just stuck a big "censored" label over the boards...which was better than anything their marketing dept. could have come up with.
Deleteloved the post e.f.
ReplyDeleteI've been trying this next line out a whole lot of different ways - but it always comes out sounding like I'm being insulting. Of course I'm not one to let that stop me - so...
The billboards and signs are fascinating. They remind me of US tv programmes form the 70s. Old-fashioned. Backward looking. Unsophisticated. The photos are a trip back in time for me.
Reminds me of Spain in a way - the Costas can be like that. Stretches of flat arid landscape broken by signs and posters and advertising. Only, in Spain, the bordellos are on waste ground areas between towns (usually about 5-10 miles out) and actively advertise saunas and massage and strip and sexual dancing (forgotten the spanish for it - when I remember I can post it). Women line the road outside beckoning customers. Drug dealers and pimps watch it all.
I don't think it's insulting...it's pretty accurate really. The Ten Flag, for instance, is certainly no later than the late 60's and this stretch of road is pretty much what you describe. It's heading out of town...the wrong way.
ReplyDeleteI love them because they're not market tested and a lot of them are home made...and old. The Ten Flag is almost certainly somebody's work place.
Damn, now I want to get lost in Cottonwood Books, that place looks amazing. And, I'm very interested in purchasing a used Cajun, how much do they normally go for?
ReplyDeleteI do like these road trip posts. Good work as ever sir.
Whatever the price it's no deal...sure he can kill and cook anything that "walks, swims, or flys"...but, I'm reminded of what Dolly Parton said to John Travolta in Rhinestone cowboy..."I know when you been at the house 'cause the toilet seats up and the cat's pregnant."
ReplyDeleteHe'd drink all your brown liquor and head out lookin' for somethin' to head-butt.
:) I love 'em.
Cottonwood is great because it's in an area where LSU students hang out (great lookin bars tucked into an underpass) and there's lots of assigned reading that gets sold there. Everytime I go it's something different. This trip it was 19th century eastern Europe...had I any interest...
There's a pretty big science section too.