Steve Vaught of thefatmanwalking.com, who is off the road for a few weeks to be under the wing of a personal trainer, talks about the depression from which he suffers and the medication he quit taking in Texas and Oklahoma. He’s trying to get to the root of the problem of his obesity. Scroll down to the Feb. 16 entry to read about it.

Edmunds’ Inside Line says it has an exclusive look at a new trailer for “Cars,” the Route 66-themed movie coming in June from Pixar Animation Studios.

I heard some news tonight that saddened me. Frederick’s Music Lounge, a great old dive bar at 4454 Chippewa (Route 66) in St. Louis, closed last Saturday.

Frederick’s was a family-owned bar for many years. One report in December from the Riverfront Times said the place had been put up for sale. Fred Boettcher Jr., aka Fred Friction, was the current proprieter. Fred, incidentally, is a member of the Highway Matrons band and a guest DJ at KDHX-FM in St. Louis.

Frederick’s was a favorite hangout for St. Louis-area musicians, and it also hosted live music in spite of it not being a lot bigger than many living rooms.

Here’s a story in the The Webster Journal about Frederick’s. Here’s another in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Both should give you a feel for the place’s atmosphere.

Fred hosted Elvis impersonator Mark Curran when Curran needed a venue in St. Louis during his Route 66 tour in 2002. Here’s one picture from that gig. Here’s another; both photos were taken by occasional Route 66 News contributor Emily Priddy. I wasn’t there, but Curran’s show was reportedly a great time.

One of my favorite memories was taking Chicago-area writer Tim Steil to Frederick’s when he was doing research on his “Highway 61 Revisited” book. Steil was going to track down Brian Henneman of the roots-rock band Bottle Rockets for an interview for the book. I knew that Henneman was performing with a classic-country side project, Diesel Island, at Frederick’s that night. We all went there, drank a few Stag beers, Steil interviewed Henneman, and Diesel Island tore into covers of Glen Campbell’s “Southern Nights,” Don Williams’ “Tulsa Time” and plenty of Merle Haggard. Good times.

Hopefully, someone will reopen Frederick’s and keep its funkiness.

UPDATE: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has some recollections from Frederick’s customers.

UPDATE: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has posted a story about Frederick’s closing.