San Francisco – Hilly and Full of Freaks
Famous For:
Leather boys, 49ers, 69ers, and sourdough.
Overview:
Hilly and full of freaks, San Francisco has been a bastion for artists, writers, and musicians since the Beats first came here in the Benzedrine and cheap port wine fueled literary explosion of the Fifties. Dirty stinking hippies soon followed with the Sixties drug explosion, and the inevitable punk [...]
Minneapolis – Block E is a Cancer
Overview
Minneapolis was founded in 1850 by a group of sadistic Swedes looking for a home as cold and flat as Stockholm. The Swedes took land from the Dakota in exchange for naming rights (Minnehaha) and a promise that some day, we would let them gamble.
During the 1800’s the Mill City milled and the Saint Anthony [...]
Las Vegas Still Lurks in the Shadows
Famous For:
Knee breaking, Frankie, Deano, and Sammy, gambling, boozing, prostitution, fear and loathing.
History:
Las Vegas was originally settled by over zealous Mormon missionaries there to teach the heathen Indians what’s what. Unfortunately, for the Mormons at least, the native tribes could have cared less. The Mormons abandoned their fort by 1857. Nothing much exciting happened until [...]
Claws Out Debauchery in Dever
Famous for: Altitude and an omelet.
Overview: Denver is, for my money, the most livable city in the U.S. It’s an affordable, good lookin’ town where virtually EVERYONE drinks as much as I do. I had been through Denver a few times on tour and each visit was an exercise in fifth-gear, claws out debauchery and [...]
Charleston – Sun, Sea, and Tanned Flesh
Overview
Your parents probably went to Charleston and took a carriage ride, toured a plantation, then came home with an overpriced sweetgrass basket they bought in the uber-touristy Market. Dubbed “the Holy City” because of its skyline of church spires, Charleston’s Southern charm is everywhere: in its cobble-stoned streets, its fancy houses along the super posh [...]
In Austin, “Alamo” Means You Can Drink
Austin is for damned sure the best thing that has ever happened to Texas. Austin has brought you such hits as party at the moon tower, Randal “Pink” Floyd, Wooderson, 6th street, Stevie Ray Vaughan, open container fair play, naked bongos, Beavis and Butthead, and the Slacker. If you’re not quite sold, you need to reset your top priority of the summer.
Unbridled Chicago Challenges the World
Famous for: Al Capone, May Day, Losing Baseball, Machine Politics, Improv Comedy, Modernism, Blues, John Hughes films, That One Song.
Overview: Christened with an American Indian word that means “stinky onion,” Chicago incorporated in 1833 with a population of 350. By 1930, the population had soared to about 3,400,000. In that time, Chicago gobbled up trains [...]
Albuquerque – Ranchero Music and Non-Stop Gunfire
Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico, sprawls out from the University and downtown area in all directions. Albuquerque’s soundtrack is ranchero music and non-stop gunfire. If you are looking for Native American petroglyphs, arrowheads, and reservations with tax-free cigarettes, or just the best carne adovada you’ll ever eat, Albuquerque has it all. And if that’s not enough for you, we have a hollow mountain that house aliens and government secrets.
Bro, Bra, Burly, Bend
Overview – Bend has grown from 14,000 people in 1990 to about 65,000 in 2005. Bend has been transformed from a lumber town with a small ski resort to ÜberAspen. Most of the transplants are Californians and disgustingly healthy retirees. The high desert climate (sunshine year round, dry fluffy snow on Mt Bachelor, very low [...]