Lost Springs, WY – If you’re looking for a drive to get away from it all, I-25 north from Denver to US-HWY 20 east in Wyoming is about as remote as it gets. Two-hundred-and-fifty miles of beautiful nothing. You won’t see utility lines strung along as there are no towns along the way. It’s beautiful country, with large, rocky hills covered with prairie short grass. Wyoming is the nation’s least populous state and Lost Springs is its least populous town.
Lost Springs sits on US-HWY 20 east. It’s a town that never really was. It’s population peaked during the… Continue Reading Tag Archives: Desolation
The Town That Couldn’t
Lost Springs, WY – If you’re looking for a drive to get away from it all, I-25 north from Denver to US-HWY 20 east in Wyoming is about as remote as it gets. Two-hundred-and-fifty miles of beautiful nothing. You won’t see utility lines strung along as there are no towns along the way. It’s beautiful country, with large, rocky hills covered with prairie short grass. Wyoming is the nation’s least populous state and Lost Springs is its least populous town.
Lost Springs sits on US-HWY 20 east. It’s a town that never really was. It’s population peaked during the… Continue Reading Nebraska Gothic
Gothenburg, NE – There isn’t much to Nebraska, at least along the I-80 corridor, which stretches clear across the state. Its sheer length and monotony is in and of itself a head game. Mile upon mile of flat, endless farmland that before long causes the eyes to go out of whack, as if you’ve stared too long at a fixed point. No amount of blinking or shifting around can bring the world back into focus. It’s nearly as bad as driving at night. Pulling over to stretch and gather your bearings is the only remedy.
After fighting my eyes… Continue Reading The Miserable Life of Rajib Mitra
For those of you wondering what I’ve been up to in Madison, here’s a sampling. It’s an article I wrote for Isthmus newspaper about a guy who, after a series of misfortunes and unfornunate decisions, decided to check out of life. Enjoy!
The first letter to Fundamental Pete’s Ass-Jammery arrived in late September, but sat in the WSUM studio’s mailbox for several weeks before the show’s host, Pete Hnilicka, got around to opening it. It was a response to a choose-your-own-adventure bit that the college radio talk show had recently aired. The adventure left off with Hnilicka… Continue Reading
Nuclear Neighbors
The city of Okuma Japan has been evacuated indefinitely pending the outcome of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where the cooling system for at least two of three failing reactors have yet to be powered up more than a week after the area was rattled by a 9.0 earthquake then ravaged by a 33-foot tsunami. So far, nuclear meltdown has spared Japan, but the situation remains serious. As of tonight, engineers are considering whether they’ll have to entomb the plant’s No. 3 reactor in concrete, the ‘Chernobyl Option.’
Predictably, the crisis has raised questions about… Continue Reading Federal Inmates Ain’t All That
Brent Delzer, 36, is currently serving a three-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty in August to one count of conspiracy to traffic marijuana. “The Worst Summer Camp Ever” is a series of Delzer’s dispatches from the Federal Prison Camp in Duluth, Minnesota. The Feral Scribe interviewed Delzer on the eve of his surrender to federal marshals in September. That interview, which provides more details about the case, can be found here.
I was going to start this project some time ago. I had it all set in my brain on how I was going to do… Continue Reading Standing with a Dopeman in the Footsteps of a Strangler
Kensington, Philadelphia – With not much on the agenda today I thought I might make cookies, but I instead put on my Sunday best and headed north to the badlands where a man dubbed the Kensington Strangler has murdered two, but maybe upwards of four woman in recent months and has choked and raped just as many.
Several people, including myself, disembarked the el at the Somerset Station. Slow walkers they all were and it seemed like an eternity passed before the line traversed the narrow berth to the stairwell leading down to the street. Through the chainlink fence,… Continue Reading Thumbs Up for an American Past Time
You’re sitting on the shoulder of a highway, on your backpack, at the edge of some town. Maybe you’ve been there several hours, thumbing each passing vehicle. You know someone will stop eventually. When they do, a rush surges through you as the brake lights flash and you hear tires hit the gravel. You run up to the car. The driver asks where you’re headed and informs how far they can take you. You scope them out. If all seems cool, you hop in and hope for the best.
You’ll repeat this process as many times as it takes… Continue Reading Journey Across a KY Cow Pasture
It was a sultry evening of electric-fence jumping, cowpie dodging, peacock chasing and tetanus skirting as I was taken on a tour of a sprawling cow pasture in southwestern Kentucky. What began as a visit to a wall built by slaves turned into a two-hour excursion through the lovely Kentucky countryside.
The cattle approached us curiously only to charge away upon our first step toward them. Creeks. Freshwater springs. Busted up mobile homes. Rusty farm equipment. An abandoned home that, if the rumors are believed, houses a dead body. (I didn’t want to verify this.) And yes, peacocks. My guide… Continue Reading Desolation
In Sam Shepard’s latest short story collection, Day Out of Days, there’s a short-short story about a guy who irks the cook after hitting on the waitress and not finishing his steak. He tells the cook there’s nothing wrong with the steak; he’s just ready for pie. The cook tells him the pies aren’t ready.
“I tell him that’s fine, I’ll just go out and buy a paper and come back. I’ll stroll around the town and take in the sights. He says there are no sights; there is no town. But I tell him I’m a big fan of… Continue Reading 
The Dark Beauty of the Badlands