Fat Man update November 2, 2005
Posted by Ron in Web sites.add a comment
Steve Vaught, of thefatmanwalking.com Web site, has posted his latest journal. He’s walked about 1,330 miles so far in an effort to lose weight and at last report was in Edmond, Okla.
The heartwarming tale of Tour de Clarence November 2, 2005
Posted by Ron in Events, Vehicles, Web sites.add a comment
This is a partial summary, but Scott May’s blog has the story about a homeless veteran named Clarence. Clarence was living in an RV park in the Route 66 town of Tucumcari, N.M., with a moped as his only form of transporation. Clarence was befriended by bikers attending the Mother Road Rally in Tucumcari. Later, Clarence’s moped broke down.
After that, well, I’ll let the principals of the story tell the rest. It’s a great read.
Getting Smart on Route 66 November 2, 2005
Posted by Ron in Movies, Vehicles, Web sites.1 comment so far
Annette of Toronto has a blog called SCOOT, or Smart Car Owners of Toronto. The Smart car is a dinky (and cute) vehicle made by DaimlerChrysler that gets fantastic mileage. One owner reports getting 78 miles per gallon on a cross-country trip. Whether that’s U.S. gallons and Imperial gallons, I’m not sure. Still impressive, however.
One of the SCOOT members apparently has been getting his/her kicks on the Mother Road. Here are photos of a Smart car in front of the 66 Drive-In theatre in Carthage, Mo.
The site includes a report by Rich Helms of the Toronto Sun about driving a Smart car:
My favourite comeback for the negative comments about the car was in Long Island, N.Y., when gas was $3.50 to $4 a gallon. I was stopped at a light, and had the top down. A man pulled up beside me in a large older car, laughed out loud and in a booming voice proclaimed, “That is the stupidest car I have ever seen.” I turned and asked him if he had filled up with gas that day. “Yep, $70 worth,” he answered. I replied, “I filled up, too. Cost me $12. Whose car’s stupid now?”
As the owner of a Honda Insight hybrid who typically gets 55 miles per gallon in the city and 60-65 on the highway, I can relate.
Dennis Hopper, Route 66 photographer? November 2, 2005
Posted by Ron in Attractions, Events.1 comment so far
Yeah, that surprised me, too. Dennis Hopper is best-known as a director (“Easy Rider,” part of which was photographed on Route 66) and an Oscar-winning actor (“Hoosiers”) who nearly became a booze and drug casualty but straightened himself out nicely during the 1980s.
I found this news release about a Hopper photograph, “Double Standard,” being installed at a high-rise residential art gallery in Marina Del Rey, Calif.
An excerpt:
Hopper’s most famous work, photographed in 1961 through a car windshield, is internationally acclaimed as a visual double entendre with two Standard Oil signs under the billboard “Smart Women Cook with Gas” at a gas station at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard, Melrose Avenue and Doheny Drive.
The triangular corner where the gas station once stood is also the border dividing the two worlds of gritty West Hollywood and posh Beverly Hills.
Hopper was a member of the artist collective in the late 1950s and 60s that became known as the “LA Art Scene” before he shot to stardom co-writing, directing and starring in the classic outlaw biker buddy movie “Easy Rider.” The entire third-floor of the 19-story residential waterfront tower is dedicated to his jolting, documentary-style black and white photography.
His photography that captures the Beat, surfer and Hippie generations are part of a collection of 160 works by 50 artists of the “LA School” permanently exhibited on every floor.
“Double Standard is certainly a Beat Generation photograph, taken not only ‘on the road’ but, as the (street) signs indicate, on legendary Route 66,” wrote Craig Krull in “LA Art Scene, 1955 to 1975,” the definitive book on the era when Los Angeles went from obscurity to worldwide recognition as a powerful force in the art world. “It is a quintessential LA image made from a driver’s perspective, complete with a convertible top and traffic in the rear view (mirror),” wrote Krull, who owns a Santa Monica gallery that’s exhibited the work of LA artists for over 40 years.
The news release has a picture of Hopper at the high-rise, but didn’t include a photograph of the art work. The only image of “Double Standard” I found on the Web is here. It’s small, but it provides a nice window of Route 66 in Southern California in the early 1960s.
There are other Hopper photographs here.
