A junk truck, Marilyn Monroe and "Please don’t hang it here."

At a truck stop on the way to Arizona a Marilyn Monroe mannequin is perched on an abandoned soda fountain stool half-way between the front door and the restrooms. Her come hither enticement to the probable freezer burned Dreyer’s ice cream is only eclipsed by the junk truck crammed with rusted tools about six feet away. No one seems to pay any attention to either of these elements - this 1950’s marketing ploy that was, from the looks of the truck stop abandoned the same year it was conceived. How apropos, this tragic sex symbol selling ice cream next to a truck filled with corroded tools - a further denigration of a woman who literally took her own life because she wanted to be taken seriously only to end up in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nothing selling uneatable ice cream next to a bunch of useless tools.

Onward to Phoenix, a city lying somewhere between the wild west and a claim to Native American culture that begins and ends in family style Mexican restaurants and a barrage of strip malls each with a barbershop, tattoo parlor, bbq wings and a personal injury attorney. Finally the hotel, the bottom of the Marriott food chain with their no-nose guard breakfast buffet and in-room sprinkler notice on the ceiling – a small drawing of a hanger in a circle with a line through it reminding you not to hang your clothes (or yourself) on the sprinkler which is located in the middle of a 10 foot high ceiling. Really? Who did this?

An hour and a half into the desert drive passing the repetitive sequential equivalent of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon – nothing – mountain range – cactus – rocks - nothing. There’s a whole lotta nothing in between something and anything. Maybe it’s all just a mirage.