A new short short story by my friend and creative co-conspirator Jeff Winke has just been published by Mad Swirl. Don't read it unless you think you'd dig something written by "a recent victim of the global economic recession who supplements his unemployment check with odd jobs that include paid participation in medical experiments and being a doorman for a jazz club located in a dark corner of the city."

Read it, baby!
More Shots from the Road

BOSTON, Mass. – View from the seventh-story window at my hotel near Logan Airport of the bridge over the Chelsea Creek connecting Chelsea and East Boston. Considered a structurally-deficient eyesore, it will soon be replaced by a new $125 million drawbridge under the Massachusetts Recovery Plan. I guess it looks better at night.

LOCK & DAM NO. 8, Genoa, Wisconsin – I love hiking on the spillways between Minnesota and Wisconsin near Lock & Dam No. 8 (located at river mile 679.2, in case you're counting). This is one of the prettiest sections of the Big Muddy, in part due to the establishment of the 261-mile-long Upper Mississippi River Wildlife Refuge in 1924.

LA CROSSE, Wis. – 99 barrels of beer on the wall? How about 22,200? That's how many these six storage silos (dressed up with the design of a La Crosse Lager can) hold at the City Brewery. That's enough to provide one person a six pack a day for 3,551 years. Or so a sign in front of the kitschy tourist attraction says.

This monument to barley, hops and conspicuous consumption also inspired Space: The Final Beer Frontier?, one of the most popular articles I ever wrote as editor of The New Brewer magazine. 

Read the full article

Something about the elevated train system in Chicago that totally appeals to my love of the inadvertent beauty of the urban landscape. This was made on the corner of Grand and Franklin in the River North neighborhood. Prints of all my Shots from the Road images are available for as little as $25.

More info

Rockerbox is an annual one-day motorcycle rally in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood. It ain't your daddy's weekend warrior Harley fest, brother. Or, as the Rockerbox organizers put it: "All bikes are welcome but anything old, strange or custom is what this event is made for."

I'm putting together a slide show to show you what they mean. In the meantime, here's one of the best T-shirts I saw on Center Street last Saturday. 

Keep your motor runnin'...

Classic car shows are cool. I especially love all those sweet design lines from the late '50s and early '60s. And, just in case you don't think these folks don't take their hobby seriously, just check out the sticker on this Ford Fairline 500, on display at the July 18 Fish Day Classic & Late Model Car Show in Port Washington, Wis. No worries mate, I walked away only with pictures.