Scenes from the road (part 9)

American food on the whole is bountiful and it is OK, just not memorable. Nearly every bar or café seems to offer the same things; Omelettes, burgers, steak sandwiches, hot dogs, steaks etc. There is not that much regional variation (unless you count grits, which is the most evil looking and smelling shit I have ever seen) and strangely for such an ethnically diverse country, not much in the way of ethnically diverse food in main stream eateries (unless you count Mexican, which I don’t, as it is bland rubbish. Corn based something or other, mince, tomato, beans, chillies, cheese – mix up slightly and call a different name and you have a got a Mexican menu).

But two places that offered great food were in Upstate New York and midstate Massachusetts.

The Autumn Café in Oneonta had fantastic Cajun food. The Divine Ms M (pictured) works in the café on a part time basis but whose main job is as a Real Estate Agent. I don’t know who was more shocked, me, when she told me that an average house in Oneonta was $110k or her, when I told her that an average price in Melbourne was $650k.

The lovely Jessica and friend in a Mid Massachusetts pub called the Stone something or other or maybe it was the Cold something in a town I can’t remember (the beer here was also very good) who served traditional pub food including Irish sausage rolls. I had never heard of these before, but they are just sensational. This was a really old pub with lovely wooden counters. Unfortunately some of these had been recently gouged by a patron. A young chappie delivering something, looking at the gouges says “I’m the most obnoxious alcoholic in this town and even I wouldn’t do this”.

Habited

New England……………Old Brian (part 1)

Dateline Delaware: I play first with Bill and Quinn. Quinn is Bill’s 13 year old son and has never played golf before and I kick his arse for at least six of the first nine holes. I then play with another two gents for the back nine and needless to say I don’t tee off first for holes ten to eighteen.  I can’t hit it. Bugger it. Bar.

 

I drink with Chris and Martin and Barkeep Miss. Miss tells us that her dad was very imaginative with his kids’ names and her siblings were also called something inventive that I can’t remember. Martin asks if her surname is Take. Martin also says that Chris is flunking retirement (both lads are of retirement age). Chris is involved in Air Safety and has been to Melbourne a number of times. He loves the laid back vibe of Melbourne compared to the frenetic nature of Sydney. All the people I speak to that have been to OZ say the same sort of thing. I don’t really understand this. I like Sydney. It’s just a shame about the pricks that live there.  Chris using his knowledge of the OZ vernacular asks Miss whether she roots for just one player (for a local team) or if she roots for the whole team. “Oh, I root for the whole team”.  Chris pays for my beer (these people are just nice) and it is time to go.  Miss (who is African American lass, I hope that is PC, but I don’t know If I have to worry about that with Miss who talks about gents “draining the main vein”), as I’m leaving says “I’ve got to hug me a white Aussie boy” and gives me a lovely hug.   

I had told young Donna behind the jump in the Pro shop about the quest before venturing out and she consequently had read the blog while I was out making a dick of myself. She warns me that I have better be nice about Miss and her in the blog. I play next in Maryland. Chris had scolded me that it wasn’t pronounced Merry- Land, but Marilyn.  So in Marilyn, on the sixth, I’m looking at a 150 approach shot. A 5. No 5. My habit is that I take my clubs out of my little travel bag while in the cart and sprawl them across the back. A chappie behind me in Delaware said “ I saw your clubs everywhere across the back and thought he is going to lose some of them”. I confidently replied “well not so far”. I ring Delaware and ask for Donna and the 5. “No, Donna doesn’t work today, but we do have the 5”.  So I drive back to Delaware. As I pull up, Donna is there having just completed a round. Donna, who also works at a local museum, had told me that she only works at the golf shop so she can golf there. I ask her if her playing partner can take a photo. Sure! I think she also says “I want to do the arm thing”. On reflection I think this is an allusion to me popping my biceps in the shots in the blog like I used to do in the team shots for the North Fawkner Football team.  ♫ Are we good, are we good, are we any bloody good we come from North Fawkner yes we do. We chew shoe tacks for our breakfast and nails for our stew and we don’t when we are beaten because we are iron through and through. Are we good, are we good, are we any bloody good, we come from Fawkner yes we do ♫ Well the answer was that we were no bloody good except for our champion Centre Half Back, J Piper.

Anyway the photo is a bust as Donna’s friend took a brief video of our feet and the car park rather than a photo. So below is my recollection of Donna and Miss.

 

   

 

 

• Some New England States
• So you thought I had made a bastard of myself before

Radio Ga Ga (Part 2)

As with the first sojourn there are long stretches of driving with the only company being the radio:

Scan……………..Crackle……………..Ad for Stan, the Preacher/Plumber (I shit you not! Does he save your soul and then your O rings?) ……………….. Scan……………..Crackle………………… Well Alan, why don’t we play another polka? (Another? This was a sentence I never thought I would hear. What I didn’t realise was that this was a weekly hour long show. “Come on Ira, the Polka show is on. Get the kids; it is time for the Progressive Barn Dance”) ……… Crackle ……………………….. Scan ……………… All I’m saying is what have the Russians got to gain by shooting down a commercial airplane? I think it was the Ukrainians who did it. So the Russians would get blamed (This was a comment by the host, not some nut job who rang in) ………… Scan……………. ………….. Crackle………………………….

♫ Everywhere you go always take the weather ♫.

(Oh!!! banging my head my head on the steering wheel has made my forehead bleed.)

I want to be a part of it. Albany, New York.

New York State is approx. 60 per cent the size of Victoria, but has about the same population as the whole of Australia. Albany is the state capital and is truly amazing. Imagine if you put all the state governments’ instrumentalities in one spot, then you have got Albany.  I don’t know if the following photo give you an idea of the scope of Public service buildings here, but take my word for it, it is jaw dropping awesome (in the true sense of the word) sight.

 

Again, I’m in a hotel that is much too good for someone who went to Fawkner High. I’m walking back to the car after confirming my booking when I spot a runaway suitcase.  Now, I have two pissweak  Superpowers: I’m pretty  good with apostrophes and if knock things over I can nearly catch them (something the enchantress I’m married to hotly disputes. I knock a can of beer over and nearly catch it as it topples over. I look over to the goddess hoping for some praise, “Not even close” is her observation).  Anyway, I discover outside the Ramada in Albany that I’m Batman. After sighting the suitcase careening down the main drag, I’m off. Now let’s not kid ourselves, I’m approaching middle age, so my fast twitch fibres are probably slightly on the wane.  But not for this thirty metres. I dash down the footpath and then onto the road.  A bus has to violently swerve to get around the case and then a car is bearing down on it. I swoop, pick it up in one movement and leap back to the footpath.  Over time this story will morph into some sort of rerun of Kevin Costner saving the baby in the pram going down the steps of Union Station Chicago in the Untouchables.

In triumph I wheel the case back to its owner some 100 metres back up the hill. He is blissfully unaware that he has caused a major road calamity. “Oh, where was it?” “Umm, running down the middle of the road!” “Oh, OK, thanks.” Oh, OK, thanks? That’s it? Anyway, I go back to my car and pull my luggage and wheel it up to the hotel. I go past the valets (I said it was ritzy) who saw the whole thing and give me a round of applause as I go pass.  Now, what I should have done is given a slight nod of acknowledgement. Instead I went with “How impressive am I?” Where is your inner Fonzie when you need him?

I play golf in Upper state New York. A bizarre course made up of 14 par 3s and four par 4s. I play with three young fellows (around 20, 22) called, Patrick, Patrick and Jeremy.  Jeremy is pretty good player. The Patricks are very ordinary. The Patricks are better than me.  I can’t play. At all. I ask the lads where I should go from here. The Patricks put forward a number of options where I might be able to pick up young women. I explain:  1. Married  2. Old  3. It is not some sort of Tiger tribute tour.

 

• Radio Ga Ga (Part 2)

 

Centralia

I don’t know how I heard about Centralia, Pennsylvania. But soon as I knew about it, I knew I had to see it. Centralia has had an underground fire since 1962. In 1962 a landfill was set on fire and spread to a labyrinth of abandoned coal mines under the town. At the time there were approx. 1,000 people living there. Now there are 7 left. It is estimated that this toxic fire will burn for another 250 years. Jill GPS couldn’t get me there. I rooted around for an hour, but couldn’t find the joint. So I ventured on to Ashland (a nearby town) and went to their local course. Here the local pro was on the phone. Fair enough I can wait and wait and wait (15 mins at least). The local pro has no socks, boat shoes, Gordon Gecko hairstyle and spray on tan. I warmed to him immediately. Eventually he gets off the phone. No apology. “Can I help you?” “18”. “Ride?” “Yeah”.

So I’m in great mood and play accordingly. I can drive and putt, but everything else is rubbish. So I have a WT, i.e. a Won’t Tell. I repair to the bar. The bar keep and others are great and give me detailed instructions on how to get to Centralia. “The Centralians won’t mind?” “Nup, my aunty is one of them and she doesn’t care”. As I leave via the Pro shop, the Pro is talking to some Dolly bird. “By the way champ, you are a complete wanker”. Slam door! Do yanks know what a wanker is? Well, I can’t really go back and explain.

I find Centralia and have a wander around. No sign of life. I’m grateful for this as I can’t help but feel a bit of a voyeur. Despite this I’m entranced by the eerie scenario and the other worldly vibe.

The sophistication of my $80 camera continues to befuddle me so these are Google images that give a good representation of what I saw and thought I took pictures of.

• I am the Batman.
• I blow my Fonzie moment.
• It is 50 states of golf not 50 shades.

“Rehabilitated? It’s just a bullshit word”. – Shawshank Redemption

The tour here is brilliant. You have your own little iPod with Steve Buscemi guiding you around the prison. In addition you have the voices of ex-prisoners, guards and the prison dentist.

You get to see Scarface’s cell. This was the first time he was incarcerated. This was for a firearm infraction. Being the USA, you would imagine this would be for not having enough firearms. “Ummm, Big Al, You don’t seem to ave, don’t seem to ave, a Tommy gun there, umm, Big Al.

He was much offended by the notion that he deliberately got himself arrested so as to put himself out of harm’s way following the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. “If I was going to get myself locked up, it wouldn’t be in Pennsylvania”.

As can be seen, Al didn’t do it too hard.

This was a photo on the wall of the prison. It is has been lost in the mist of time why two (now surely dead) cons had a mini clothesline with some miniature clothes on it. And why were they blowing them with an electric fan?

The prison dentist (via the Ipod) related a story when he had to perform an extraction on perhaps the most violent and volatile prisoner at Eastern. No name was given. The guard wouldn’t let the prisoner be operated on in the dental surgery or let the dentist into the prisoner’s cell. Instead the con had to open his mouth as wide as possible up against the cell bars and the dentist operated from outside the cell. The guard rested his rifle against the prisoner’s face and told him if he made any move (something that may be a tad difficult to avoid, given he was having a tooth pulled) he would have his head blown off.

Besides Capone the most famous prisoner at Eastern was Willie Sutton – The Babe Ruth of bank robbers. Willie was asked why he kept robbing banks “because that’s where the money is,” was his reported reply. It is estimated that Willie stole over $2 million over a 40 year career and escaped from prison three times including once from Eastern. You can still see the escape hole through the plaster in one of the cells. A plasterer/convict  by the name of Clarence (how scary could a con called Clarence be?) and his cellmate built a tunnel 15 feet down, ninety seven foot under the wall and coming up in Fairmount ave, the main drag outside the prison. Willie and 9 others appeared to join on impulse when they saw what was happening while coming back from breakfast. They were all eventually caught. Willie was caught within 2 minutes with the guards simply following his muddy footprints.

• A genuine ghost town
• A genuine tosser

“cause you’re gonna get your mind right. And I mean RIGHT” – Cool Hand Luke

I’ve heard the grumbles. When is he going to write about car rentals again and how shithouse he is playing golf? We want to hear how he is pissing off Americans and making a complete bastard of himself. Just be patient. That is certainly happening. But I’m trying to relate things in a chronological order. And next was a special place.

Eastern Penitentiary was one of the things I most wanted to see and it didn’t disappoint. I only knew about this place, because I saw a doco by the Spanish Infanta (Black Adder), Miriam Margolyes.

She did a series where she retraced the journey of Charles Dickens through the USA that he chronicled in American Notes.

Eastern Penitentiary was the result of an early think tank led by Benny Franklin that wanted to genuinely rehabilitate prisoners. At the time (the 1780s) prisons were basically holding pens where men, women and children were all bundled together. Benny’s think tank wanted to separate prisoners into absolute solitude where they could reflect upon their crimes and make penitence. The result was Eastern Penitentiary. At the time when it was opened in 1829, it was regarded as a modern architectural triumph. It had running water and flushing toilets, (the then President, Andrew Jackson, was using a chamber pot in the White House). All human interaction was kept to an absolute minimum. Prisoners were fed through feeding holes.

They were kept in solitude for 23 hours a day. They were given an hour of exercise in a three metre by two metre private yard where they were kept hooded. The guards wore thick socks over their boots so the prisoners would be unable to hear any human activity. Charlie Dickens visited in 1842 and thought it was cruel and unusual punishment that would lead to insanity. No real study was done to determine the effectiveness of the “Pennsylvanian system”. Over time it devolved or evolved according to your viewpoint until it was finally disbanded in 1913. From there things got really interesting.

• Big Al’s first cell, first love.
• Why banks? That is where they keep the money.
• How to keep patients nice and quiet.

Philly………That’s it!……….Just Philly

From Jersey I go to Pennsylvania, more particularly, one of my favourite cities, namely Philadelphia, as nobody calls it, or Philly, as everyone calls it. I use a site called Hot Wire to book my hotel. It doesn’t reveal the name of the hotel until after you’ve booked; it only gives you a general area and the price. Using this system I end up in a very swank hotel, the Radisson Blu, in mid town, for only $130. The whole time I’m there, I fear I’m going to get a tap on the shoulder and a stern concierge will say “you and your type really don’t belong here Mr Donnelly”, but I manage to slip under the radar. The area is brilliant; there are numerous great bars around here. One of these is the Tria. This has 30 different taps and each customer gets an ipad of sorts that reveals the cost, character and availability of each individual beer. The place is great, as are the customers, the barkeep on the other is the most, world music, brown rice, pottery spinning wanker you will ever come across.

One of the main reasons I came to Philly were two museums. The first, The Mutter Museum is a collection of medical specimens that tends to the bizarre. It was both fascinating, (plaster casts of the original Siamese twins, one of whom was alcoholic with a terrible temper, the other a sweet natured man who had to put up with this arsehole every day, death masks of advanced syphilitics, foetuses without any cranial capacity, etc.) and a little disappointing. Unfortunately, it was all a bit shambolic with it all being shoved together and “you should look at all this stuff” theme.

Chang and Eng. They fathered 21 children. Chang died January 1874 while the brothers were asleep.Eng awoke found his brother dead and said “Then I am going”. He died within three hours. Posthumously, it was found that they could have been separated even given the surgical conditions of the day. Their co-joined liver is also at the Mutter.

The Mutter is also full of stuff like this.

and this

and this

I know I have some followers in Argentina and one in Uzbekistan. I have no idea why. But you probably should flick past this bit.

The above reminded of a picture in the Herald Sun in 1989 showing the new Richmond ruck combination of Richard “Big Dick” Lounder and Dale “the flea” Weightman. Football tragics will remember that Big Dick was the number one draft pick and at 7 foot two, an astute choice. Unfortunately Big Dick couldn’t play football at all. Actually hadn’t even heard of AFL and thought he had been brought to Melbourne on a Arts Scholarship. It is this type of thinking that has kept the Tigers a power for the past 30 years. I like the look of the Flea. He looks like he is just waiting to king hit someone who is not looking.

• A new take on rehabilitation.
• What the Dickens!

Scenes from the road (part 8)

Not sure. Maybe a period of abstinence coupled with a terrible industrial accident.

Just a slight hiccup.

P.U.B (Pissed up Brian) hasn’t really made an appearance as yet. But in Newark, Brian got a bit “How’s your father?” (BgabHYF). I already explained I got into something of a session with Terri (the nurse from Philly) and a chap from upstate New York (whom I’m sure has a name). During the night BgabHYF decided to secure his cash (there not being a Room Safe) and went upstairs to hide same. All well so far.

Next morning, where did I put that dough? OK, I was a little How’s your father? But, not too bad! Unpack suitcase- No. Check every drawer-No. Under Mattress- No. Bible-No. Already let’s divide the room up into 1 metre blocks- No.

Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat. – Shit! ………… SHIT!

2 hours of this carry on and incredibly profane language.
Well that’s it. It has obviously been stolen. Really, stupid? He stole past security and CCTV, left everything else, but stole your moneybelt. Come on, it has to be here!
Repeat.
Repeat.

Well I’ll have to report the theft to the Hotel and the Police. How embarrassing is this?
Hang on………….Hang on!
You Genius, Donnelly . Well BgabHYF, you genius. So, that it is where it is going to stay for the rest of the trip. If fully functioning Brian (FFB) couldn’t find it…..blah…….blah……blah.

• Let’s face it Mr Donnelly wouldn’t you be more comfortable at Motel 6
• It doesn’t Mutter
• Finally a tribute to Big Dick and the flea