Dead-End Highway of my Soul I have killed. I did it for neither pleasure nor malice but I will not deny the facts. I kill with mighty weapons, thousands of pounds of deadly metal with which I bear down on the innocent from the safety of my command console. I am nothing if not an American. I can tell you what it is like to squish a frog. It’s a delicate sound, you will miss it if you don’t have the window open to enjoy the sea air. The last thing I ever killed was a bird. There it was on the onramp (I was going to the state Green Party convention, where I was to speak). Actually, I don’t know which one it was- birds gather in groups, like nair -do-well ruffians, juvenile delinquents, cops, or such. “They’re birds,” I thought. “They fly. They will Fly away.” And they did. All but one. He made a sound that I can assure you was quite unlike a frog. Meatier. Less amphibian. So, like a Roman, I have purged myself. Ride on. I drive on what must be the most deadly streets in the US. (I do not say America so as not to anger our Canadian readers. I will anger them later.) I judge this by all the crosses and flowers out there. Damn. I wish they also drew chalk outlines on the pavement of the cars and their path of travel. For science. Everywhere I go the sides of the road are dotted with flowers and crosses. It’s the kind of sight that really turns your head. Some of them are insanely elaborate. I saw one today on the way to the beach that was huge, had the name in fancy script, and had roses in hanging baskets. I was so busy looking at it I almost ran right off the road (off the road, to the right). BLAM. The greatest thing about the roadside accident memorials are that they are self replicating. Years from now we’ll not be going, “whatever happened to the roadside accident memorials?” I swear, soon I will start stealing them. Free Flowers. Ride on. Whatever happened to the great architecture of yesteryear? Back when a building looked not like a building, but something other than a building. It’s that escape from reality I need when I am determining where to stop and relieve myself, literally and metaphorically. Before there were miles of strip malls and coffee drive-throughs every 500 feet, there were novelty buildings. Usually located on "the old highway" these include "The Sandy Jug" in Portland , "The Java Jive Cafe" (shaped like a teapot) in Tacoma, and "Hat & Boots" in Seattle. Once shiney and new, now these cultural artifacts stand in varied stages of rot. Much like those inside them. Ride on. Am I the only one who is attracted to the crumbling, rotting buildings out on the back roads? Am I the only one drawn to the houses and sheds that are slowly sinking into their foundations; an untold story of decade after decade of total and, dare I say, devoted neglect? I am told, in Europe it is common that they have buildings from the 1600s. They think nothing of it. They redo the inside. They redo the outside. The building lives on. I love buildings out there that look like they will not stand for another decade- the foundations sagging, the roof ready to cave in. The house and garage inside a public park near my house are not that bad, but will be one day. How old are those places that are ready to fall? The ones I bussed past every day on the way to school in the 80’s could have been no more than sixty years old. That’s how old the town was. Still, they looked like they had been abandoned a hundred years ago. I like to think they were. I like to think they were built by the aliens. Ride on. Every place I go looks just like every other place I go. Every place has McDonalds, Burger King, KFC. Every place has a hundred or so Starbucks across from a hundred or so Subways. Every place has a Dennys. Every place has insurance offices, banks, and police stations. When I go someplace I have never been, there is little reason to stay. I do my gig- and then I leave. Science has a word for that. They call it McEntropy. Eventually all these paragons of capital will no longer expand ever outward, but collapse back into themselves. But first they will rot. Ride on. The governor has set up a multimillion dollar committee to study why I don’t spend a lot of money as I travel. They say I am a traitor. Ride on. Drive-in Hell. Yesterday I drove by two decommissioned drive-in theaters. Both are now "swap meets." Now, call me old fashioned, but abandoned shopping malls are places for swap meets; old drive-ins are places for blood, gore, satanists, and nudity. And possibly movies. I wept real tears. Ride on. David Raffin is the editor of Vision? Nary! magazine. A writer and a performer, he may be contacted though his home page. This column is available by email. If you are interested in running this column as a regular feature in your publication, contact here.