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Inside: Cultural Sausage. ~ Ludic Lists. ~ Skullbucket. Outside: "Smash Comics Jester" "Meryl Streep nose" "Dunkin Donuts worst job" "mean things to say to people" "Satanist orgy" "le petomaine" "Frank Serpico karate" "how to fight people" |
06.28.2004
From the 2004 edition of Frontage Road U.S.A.: Adventures Just Off The Superhighway, we are pleased to present the chapter entitled "Oddest-Named Cities In America". Special thanks to the Jug-O'-Shine Publishing for permission to excerpt this material. Nipples, FL. Originally planned as a cultural and intellectual haven in the theme-parks-and-outlet-malls wasteland of central Florida and meant to be called Naples, this planned community was doomed from the start after a misunderstanding involving the county record-keeper and the city planner, a Swiss immigrant with a pronounced accent. Far from becoming a mecca of learning and art, it attracted record numbers of pornography stores and gentlemen's clubs. And, although there are an above-average number of museums, they commemorate not local folklore or ethnic pride but "the history of the tit". To Be Determined, MT. A note scrawled on the town charter by Mitchell Ormand, the thoughtful founder of this former mining town illustrated his determination not to make a hasty decision with something as important as the name of the boom town that would bear his legacy into the future. Unfortunately, he was hit by a train only three days later, and his son and heir proved to be rather literal-minded. "We always meant to change the name of the place to Ormand or Mitchelltown or something," says five-term mayor Frances Keller, "but after so much time it sorts seems pointless. Visitors are encouraged to visit the To Be Announced Festival, time and date pending. Ass Munch Loser Town, MI. Struck by hard times in the 1986 when the auto industry that supported it began sending jobs out of the country, the city of Springdon held a widely publicized contest in which entrants would pay a substantial fee to enter a raffle. The winner would be granted the right to rename the town, and the municipal coffers would receive a much-needed infusion of cash. However, the PR firm which engineered the raffle neglected to include an expiration date on the naming and an age limitation for entrants, and Carl Burrows, the then-14-year-old son of a wealthy auto industry executive, won the right to saddle Springdon with its regrettable name. Town elders hoped that after the young man matured, he might reconsider his decision, but much to their chagrin, Burrows, now 32 and a wealthy auto industry executive himself, refuses to allow a name change. "I think it's fuckin' hilarious," he says. "After all, you have to admit, that town is full of ass munch losers." Almost Hitler, NC. A small town in the north central part of the state occupied by small farmers and tobacco growers, Almost Hitler (formerly Scovil) is the home of the Brande family, the wealthiest citizens in the area. In the mid-1950s, patriarch Kendall Brande, a notorious gambler, lost all his ready cash in a poker game to a rival from nearby Coverdell. Desperate to recoup his losses, Brande offered a unique bet: if he won the next game, he got back all the cash he'd dropped that night. If he lost, the rival won the right to alter the town charter and give it the worst name he could think of. Fortunately, Brande won the bet. Unfortunately, he stumbled home the next morning, still drunk after his night of gambling, and imperfectly attempted to communicate to the city registrar that the name of the town was almost Hitler. |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "Big plans, elaborate schemes and grand designs sort of messily bleeding into one another have created Chicago's reputation for rawness. But that rawness is just ambition -- sometimes ambition run amok -- that has acquired a life of its own." (Pat Colander) |