Pete Rizzo Does America: A (de)Tour of the Nation

Pete Rizzo

Hello, hello. Welcome to whoever comes across Pete Rizzo’s site. During Pete Rizzo’s time as an undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst his blog was used as a portal to showcase his extensive journalism/radio/general media portfolio to a wider audience.

Now it has taken on a new meaning. Pete Rizzo was faced with a difficult choice. The choice of applying for summer pizza delivery jobs with his college degree, and slogging away long hours of applications on the inter-web in search of some media/journalsim/radio job or the chance to hit the American roadways in crazy half-thought-out quest for meaning in this depressing post-graduate, pre-apocalyptic existence.

The choice was easy, the wheel in hand, the road unfolds. Follow it with me now as he boldly blog where no man has blogged before (right now it’s at the Chattanooga Inn & Suites in Tennessee, he is indeed the first person ever to blog from its premises in it’s 70 year existence).

5 Things I Learned in Texas

Texas Welcome Center

1) In Texas there are different speed limits at night.

2) Texas has bats, a lot of bats.

3) Animatronic versions of dead U.S. presidents are creepy

4) It is not impossible to eat an entire Don Juan, just painful and delicious.

5) The Dizzy Rooster crossed the street to get to the Chuggin’ Monkey.

5 Things I Learned in Mississippi

1) Mississippi is pronounced (mis-sippi)

2) Waffle Houses are amazing. And in certain parts are even called Huddle Houses. The difference is apparently mostly in price, similar to a TGI Friday’s / Ruby Tuesday comparison. You can also park at Waffle House when trying to avoid parking fees.

3) Motel 6 employees are not allowed to take anything from your motel room. It must be donated to Salvation Army and a receipt of the transaction kept.

4) Mississippi is the “magnolia” state and not the “hospitality state” though it was once used on their license plates.

5) There are really people that talk like Boomhauer (from King of the Hill)

Austin, Texas

Guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughn overlooks downtown Austin

Monday morning I awoke for my first full day of exploring Austin, Texas and all of it’s related activities.

12:00 pm

My first stop was a statue erected in honor of one of the men who helped make Austin the “Live Music Capital of the World,” a claim it backs up with two annual music festivals and of course a massive statue to Texas blues gunslinger Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Four years after his death, the city commissioned this bronze statue of Vaughan which overlooks Auditorium Shores, a scenic park that houses many afternoon joggers, dog-walkers, and a free stage at Austin’s annual SXSW. The park is easy to find and offers free parking, so for any music fan, the statue is a must. Though in Austin there remained a lot more to be seen for this traveler.

A collage of LBJ buttons...

1:15 pm

After a bit of traversing through the winding highways of downtown Austin, I finally found the elusive exit 240B accompanied by a sign for The University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. This museum dedicated to our 36th president houses four floors of memorabilia and oddball collections with everything from trivialities like his trademark stetson hat and campaign pins (seen left) to ceremonial ivory tusks and life-sized animatronic of LBJ himself.

Among the regular attractions at the exhibit were also a brand new showcase (which runs through January of next year) dedicated to the recently deceased Walter Cronkite. The exhibit features a 15 minute CBS flashback film in one of the museums viewing areas as well as collections of his old business cards (below),

An American Carol (2008)

Rating: 2 / 5

This morning while flipping through the channels at my hotel, I made a choice that surprised myself. I opted out of watching CNN’s live feed of gushing oil and ESPN’s morning updates (figuring it couldn’t be that different from the same highlights last night) and stumbled toward my complimentary Showtime channels. Okay so it was 9 a.m. and my only two options were Dolph Lundgren’s 1980′s He-Man Movie, and An American Carol.

Now even as someone who follows movie developments closely (new Dune movie yeah!) I’ll admit that I had heard very little of this film, and it seems for very good reason. After about 5 minutes of watching Kevin P. Farley (Chris’ younger brother) bop around as a pinheaded anti-American Michael Malone, a straight satire (that would be too much of compliment perhaps) of film director Michael Moore, I quickly changed the channel. However something intrigued me about the movie and I kept going back. Perhaps it was it’s airplane style slapstick humor that followed through every scene, particularly with the inept terrorist characters with deadpan lines like “Its is getting harder and harder to find suicide bombers. All the really good ones are gone,” or maybe it was just too early to fully appreciate Dolph Lundgren’s chiseled pectorals.

Uncomfortable Sign of the Day 6/21

Found this after parking my car on 18th Street downtown Birmingham, Alabama near Kelly Ingram Park. It’s really the details that make the presentation of this business so awkward. I don’t really want to ask what kinds of services are provided here. Though further research on the Huggs and Kisses “Alternative Care for the Mildly Ill Child” seems to suggest that it is in fact a daycare though they also don’t seem to have a website to clear up any of these speculations…