MOTEL REVIEW: THE PARRY LODGE, KANAB, UTAH

By Maggie Behle, for The Believer.

The Parry Lodge, known as the place “Where the Stars Stay,” is located in Kanab, Utah, about 300 miles south of Salt Lake City. Kanab is a small town, isolated in Utah’s red rock desert country. Surrounding this quaint town are Zion and Bryce national parks and the largest hole in America, the Grand Canyon. Kanab was originally inhabited by the Anasazi, then the Paiute and Navajo Indians. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moved in around the 1870s. Brigham Young sent the Mormon settler Levi Stewart down south to set up a Mormon settlement to spread the good word and raise livestock. With a current booming population of 3,289, Kanab has grown tremendously in the past years. A few years ago locals marveled at the insertion of a stoplight, and the increasing growth of fast food chains in their small, unique town.

One of the modern highlights in Kanab is the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, which houses 1,500 animals, making the town’s human-to-animal ratio 2 to 1. The sanctuary is a temporary home to mostly homeless cats and dogs, but also houses horses, burros, various birds, rabbits, goats, and many other friendly creatures. One of the most famous animals at the sanctuary is a donkey named One-Eyed Jack, whose original parents let him live in a trailer. At Best Friends, they assure us that although he only has one eye, he is one of the loudest animals on the premises. The sanctuary has over 20,000 visitors a year, with the honorable goal of ending animal homelessness by the year 2005. Kanab is not only rich with historic, scenic, and needy pet beauty, it has been a hot spot for western movie-making since 1927. Kanab being a small town, there was one motel the western stars stayed in, the Parry Lodge.

The motel was built in 1929, and has been host to a variety of old movie stars, specifically Hollywood cowboys and western harlots. The Parry advertises the ability to stay in rooms that have housed “adventure,” “glamour,” and even “romance,” played out by stars such as Ava Gardner, Glen Ford, Charlton Heston, and the ever-so-popular John Wayne. Many of the rooms have plaques with the name of the specific star that may have slept in your bed, cleaned up in your shower, and simply relaxed at the pool after a hard day’s work. The lodge has a dining room for old-fashioned home-cooked breakfasts and dinners, a swimming pool to beat the desert heat, and even a gift shop. Surrounded by the towering red plateaus and high elevation desert foliage, it’s no wonder it became a Hollywood hot spot.

If simple imagination is not enough for your visit, there is The Old Barn Playhouse located on the property of the Parry Lodge. The show put on is the perfect melodrama, where viewers are encouraged to laugh and cry along with the heroes, heroines, and villains, and even, at times, participate. The Barn was originally used, as barns are, to house animals. When the stars came to town it became a storage facility for the camera gear and props and animals used in the films. This is where John Wayne stabled his horses, and Victor Mature kept his camels tied up here. Although the full story can only be revealed upon a visit to the Old Barn Playhouse, apparently Glen Ford once had a tooth pulled here once.

WHAT KIND OF A HOUSE YOU CAN BUY FOR $165,000 IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS

For $165,000, you can get yourself a nice one. Here is a 3 bed, 1 bath in Fayetteville, U of A's host city, population 60,000, situated right at the brink of the Ozarks. Look at those trees, that deck, that living room large enough to entertain the entire feline and pachyderm wings of the Ringling Brothers' Barnum and Bailey Travelling Circus's Live Animal Department. I mean, that is a spacious room! I want a house with that kind of living room. You could literally have a baby and then lose it somewhere within that space and never find it again, despite its constant crying. You would be like, "Oh fuck fuck fuck, WHERE IS MY BABY!! WHERE IS MY NEWBORN CHILD? I CAN'T SEEM TO FIND IT -- THIS GODDAMN LIVING ROOM IS TOO LARGE!"








Anyway, I'm trying to move to Fayetteville with my girlfriend for grad school. We're planning to substitute teach for income in the meantime and rent a downtown apartment to live in. It is completely reasonable that we would wish to hang around and buy property there. What. Am I expected to do that here in San Diego? Ha. Stop it. Knock that off. You are making me laugh laughs out of mouth.

Songs I am feeling right now (I mean now).

Unwound "Below the Salt" Leaves Turn Inside You [Dischord; 1999]
Silkworm "Don't Look Back" It'll Be Cool [Touch and Go; 2004]
Hot Snakes "Let it Come" Automatic Midnight [Swami; 2000]
Six Finger Satellite "Sea of Tranquility Pts 1 & 2" Law of Ruins [Sub Pop; 1998]

THE LEGEND OF SASQUATCH MOUNTAIN

Here's a powerful new flash movie from Larry Carlson. It's called The Legend of Sasquatch Mountain. It's supposed to be the equivalent of taking LSD, but I dunno... I've taken LSD a couple of times and it wasn't anywhere near as colorful or as fun!

SURPRISE!

San Diego mayor Richard "Dick" Murphy has just announced, not five minutes ago, that he will be resigning as of June 15th. The low-quality Republican politician, who is a devoted husband and father, was recently included in a recent TIME magazine feature entitled "The Three Worst Big-City Mayors," and will be replaced by ex-Van Halen singer and tequila advocate, Sammy Hagar.


Mayor Hagar.

In last week's TIME article, Dick was included with Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (responsible for cutting 3,000 city positions and ending 24-hour bus service while maintaining his 21-person security detail and the city paid nearly $25,000 to lease a sport utility vehicle for his wife) and Philadelphia Mayor John Street (making the list because of "naked shakedown for donations to Street's 2003 re-election campaign" by one of the mayor's close friends and fundraisers).

LEON HENDRIX & THE BAND OF GYPS

Jimi Hendrix's little brother, Leon Hendrix, 56, begins guitar lessons and records his debut album after he claims Jimi's sprit ghost came to him as a purple flame one night in bed.

From The New York Times:

"I could see Jimi up there, beckoning," he recalled. "He was saying, 'Come on, baby brother. It's time. You're ready.' Since then, I feel like he's sanctioned me to carry on his musical legacy."

"Sometimes if I'm playing, I'll ask Jimi to help me," he said. "I'll say, 'What do I do now?' And he tells me, 'Reach for it.' "

"Here's how it all started," he explained during a recent interview in New York. "I was laying in bed, and a purple flame came out of the sky and set the whole room buzzing. My whole body started shaking, and I had an old guitar in the corner that some lady traded me for some dope. The flame knocked all the dust off the strings and I just reached over and grabbed it, and ever since I've been playing like a madman possessed."

He says he summoned his brother's spirit and is now booking club gigs, teaming with the drummer Buddy Miles, who played in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies. ... Mr. Hendrix admits that he has none of his brother's technical wizardry, although he adds that he is constantly improving.

"When I'm onstage, I see all these people looking at me expecting another Jimi, but I won't play none of his tunes," he said. ..."They offered me 20 grand a night to play Vegas, but they want 'Purple Haze' and 'Foxy Lady,' " he said. "I just can't play that stuff."

And after a lifetime of living the blues - including foster homes, drug addiction and other hardships - Mr. Hendrix, 56, says he finally has a reason to sing them: he was recently cut out of his brother's $80 million estate.

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"THE WHITE OLIPHAUNTS" BY TOBIAS SEAMON

Looking back upon that summer, through the haze of chauffeurs and carriages and ostrich-plumed hats along the drive of my neighbor the Meister's house, many of the goings-on and those that did the going seemed indistinguishable at first, like eminent clots within a monied and fabulous amoeba. But finding my notes, jotted in the overly conscientious script of a post-midnight inebriate, I recalled again the many memorable parties within that, the grandest party of them all.

There was J.B. Stitchum who made his fortune in flypaper and was the first man ever seen wearing yellow-tinted sun shades, and Sinclair Straits who smashed his yacht "The Spanking New" into a lock along the Champlain canal when he heard Harding got the nomination.

There was Dulcimer Flutonius, a scion of the Byzantine line touring the Continent billed as "Mistress of the Harmonium," and the philosopher-novelist Gretchen Fortune, whose mellifluous voice and silver sandals kept the illuminati a-buzz all summer.

There was Little Mickey the horse jockey, crop in hand, turning the glasshouse into a rose-choked orgy, and Toothpick Jake, a farmer cum guitarist whose rag "The Broken Tractor Walk" became the anthem of August.

There was Rutherford Sampson the pig-iron magnate advocating use of the hula-hoop at all fraternal orders, and Leonine Scrimpens, universally accepted as a calamitous lunatic despite her turning the Daily Picayune into the leading organ of the masses.

There were the white Oliphaunts and the black Oliphaunts, endlessly feuding until the Duchess Bleuvin, fresh from a sunken ocean liner, instilled such a fear in both sets that they ceased their wayward bickering and headed en masse to the hills.

There was the gossip columnist Miss Airedale, with her companion Miss Longstroke, daring to mention Jimmy the Slant's ear horn in the Wednesday Supplement, causing both to be banished from the head table.

There was Tory Chanteuse the ladies' table tennis champion, Magruder Pickett, self-styled "Last of the Copperheads," and Billy Steadfast, the Okie oil millionaire, miraculously building a horseshoe pit at the bottom of the pool.

There was Talisman Jackson the occultist séance queen who dyed her champagne orange, and Jeremiah Sansjoye, gunslinging son of the Cincinnati produce dealer Jehovah Sansjoye, blasting the glass off Miss. Jackson's perfectly round head.

There was Lilith Griffin, a beauty of such striking physique and grey eyes, wearing beaded, see-through dresses fashioned entirely of opals, that she received thirty confirmed marriage proposals by Independence Day.

There was Lipscombe Burdock, a violent maestro able to play all of Chopin's nocturnes on solo bassoon, and the Highland Tinsels, Glendon and Serena, who gave fly-casting lessons from the expanse of the Meister's family mausoleum.

There was Sanderson F. Sand, the eminent Roman historian, carrying an hourglass at all times in order to blunt his own prolonged monologues, and Theodosia Baal, arriving not once but twice bare-breasted in a litter sedan carried by her similarly unclad maid staff.

There was Z. Krakow the expatriate Polish poet who wept openly whenever the subject of ponds came up, and the recently-knighted explorer L. Scott Absconde, claiming he'd ascertained the secret of the Trojan ruins while passed out in his mother-in-law's Channel Island water closet.

There was the psychiatrist Gustav Mandrake, a serpentine pervert and the only person ever asked to leave the grounds, and Robert "The Great" Rouncival, escape artist extraordinaire infuriating many during his performance on the tower balcony with a scotch cask and wristwatch.

There was Chenowith Redeemer the temperance organizer growing so riled by the courtside antics that she bared her bottom to the howling, tennis-whited throng, and Muley Haas, strongman of the Five Points, bending quarters with his toes alone.

There was Lucky Corcoran, barred from every poker table that side of the Ohio except the Meister's, and Beulah Finch, the hair pomade heiress who took to a canopied guest bed with the irrevocable decision to lie there and die.

Finally, all the time, there was myself, in flannels and a borrowed belt, waiting until summer's end to propose to Lilith Griffin, her answer making me realize why there are stars in the night.

All these people were seen on the Meister's lawn in summer.

FRIENDLY ANIMAL

THEY PUT PROPOFOL IN MY BLOODS

i slowly type this post with my left hand to let you know my right one is snug inside a plaster cast and nestled into a sling. yesterday i had surgery on the flexor tendon in my right middle finger to sew up the laceration i accidentally gave myself at work on the first of the month (i'm a framer at an art gallery and i had a 36" x 30" sheet of uv conservation clear glass break under my paw). since then, i haven't been able to use my middle finger, rendering my hand no more useful than a toddler's when it comes to gripping operations.

had the pleasure of experiencing anasthesia (time travel) yesterday for the first time and that was a big treat. the cast, though, is a total drag. despite being heavy and cumbersome and a bitch to take into the shower or sleep with, it's going to put a damper on my posting for the next two weeks.

luckily for me though, i can use my left hand to dial a telephone with great ease, which i will be doing later to order me up some temporary disability benefit checks.

ADOBE FALLS

Just north of I-8, at the foot of the single-family home Del Cerro neighborhood, across from the SDSU campus lies Adobe Falls, a currently undeveloped piece of land owned by the Cal State Board of Supervisors and proposed for development into a graduate student/retired faculty housing complex for the school's 2020 master plan revision. I've been to public meetings to hear the community opposition to development and I'm doing a site assessment on the area for my land use analysis class. So, today, I went out to Adobe Falls site during the "magic hour" tonight to take some pictures for my report.

Once you cross the gate at a cul-de-sac at the end of Mill Creek Road, you've got to cross a stream to get up to the higher ground that slopes uphill to the south. Here, you can see a patch of wild mustard plants in the foreground, and the SDSU chemical science lab and a parking structure amidst construction in the background.

As you walk to the east to the falls, you can look to the north to see the palm trees and giant reed plants that grow along the streambank and some of the upper-class Del Cerro houses. These are the residents most vehemently opposed to the development, which is understandable given that development would replace this point of view with a three-story dormitory.

Once you get up to the top of the slope, you've got to climb down some rocks to get a close up view of the Falls itself. As you can see, it's not exactly a scenic tourist attraction, as the water source is a storm drain runoff collector that empties into the San Diego River near Mission Valley. Many of the rocks are covered with graffiti and the water is thick with algea growth. On this particular visit, I observed bottles, cans, plastic detergent containers, shopping carts, and even a rat scurrying around the rocks.

I did, however, see a lone beautiful white sage plant all by itself not far from the trail on the way down. And I took one more shot from Mill Peak road driving back that overlooks the south end of the site that buts up against I-8, the freeway that seperates Adobe Falls' undeveloped land from the rest of the developed campus.

TO HIS CREDIT, SCALIA DID HAVE SOME GOOD IDEAS

Pat Sajak's personal website! Though the guy's clearly an enormous douche who most likely verbally assaults his tennis opponents after too many singapore slings at his Beverly Hills compound and sleeps in a waterbed with a stereo built into the headboard that repeatedly plays "Eye in the Sky" by the Alan Parsons Project (to paraphrase David Berman), I must admit I'm in love with the fact his personal website is designed with the Miami Vice motif. One of the most graceful transitions from 1987 to the Internet that I've ever seen.

What's on Pat's mind? A glance at his blog, "Sajak Says," provides excellent insight to his psyche. And in that psyche lies a deep hatred of liberals. Here's some of The PuzzleMaster's musings from an entry entitled, "Arguing with liberals, and why I've stopped."

Every time I argue with a Liberal, I’m reminded of quarrels I used to have with my parents. The battles never seemed fair because my folks decided what the rules were and what was out of bounds. In addition, because they were parents, they could threaten me in ways I couldn’t threaten them, and they could say things I could never say.

Recently, for example, I was discussing the United Sates Supreme Court with on [sic] of my many Liberal friends out in Los Angeles when she said, without any discernable embarrassment, that Justice Anton Scalia was “worse than Hitler”. Realizing she wasn’t alive during World War II and perhaps she may have been absent on those days when her schoolmates were studying Nazism, I reminded her of some of Hitler’s more egregious crimes against humanity, suggesting she may have overstated the case. She had not; Scalia was worse. As I often did when my parents threatened to send me to my room, I let the conversation die.

CAVE SENTRY OWL DUO

I watched about twenty minutes of The Mask starring Cher this morning and I had trouble remembering whether or not that kid actually looked like that or if it was in fact a cosmetic enhancement. I also sat through Spanglish yesterday afternoon and it was a total piece of shit, save the two OK characters: Alcoholic Grandma, and Mexican Guy Washing His Car Without a Shirt.

A ZEN MICRO 4 GIGA-BYTE MP-3 STYLE ELECTRONICAL MUSIC-PLAYING MECHANISM is now in my posession! Thanks aplenty to Melecita for her generosity. What have I fed to the magical box so far? I have fed it plenty of The Fall, Peter Brotzmann Trio, Smog, Unwound, Polvo, The Wipers (who I cherish as if they were my own), The Ponys, the new Arcade Fire everybody's talking about, the new Wilco nobody's talking about, Superchunk, Sly Stone, "Remember Me" by British Sea Power and none of their other wimpy crap, a Circle Jerks song, a Sparklehorse song, a Mekons song, some of the new Oneida album which is weirding me out a little and that is good I guess, lots of Guided by Voices' trademark magnificence, my buddies Silkworm, Trans Am, Hot Snakes, and the Buzzcocks. I resisted the urge to "spice up" my 4 gigs with Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, as I have been known to do.

"I THINK WE DESERVE A BIGGER NAME"

From The Daily Pennsylvanian, regarding the University of Pennsylvania's decision to book Sonic Youth as the headliner for their Spring Fling campus concert, and the resulting outrage among the student body.

Sonic Youth -- an underground punk-rock band -- will headline this year's Spring Fling concert, Social Planning and Events Committee officials announced yesterday.

SPEC Concert directors say they are going for "a whole new feel" this year, as opposed to the hip-hop artists that have performed in the past few years.

"Who are they?" College freshman Elizabeth Jefferson asked. "I've never heard of them."

Wharton junior Lloyd Thomas said he feels "disappointed," especially considering what some other schools have performing this year.

For example, Snoop Dogg will be headlining Cornell's Slope Day concert and Ben Folds will be playing at Brown's Spring Weekend.

"I think we deserve a bigger name," Thomas said.

College sophomore Sheila Houser said that "it's great that the University is reaching out to bands that not many people have heard of," while noting that "twenty bucks is a lot to pay for a couple of bands that I don't really know that much about."

Oh! And check out of some of the student comments posted at the site:

sonic youth (kind of funny that a bunch of old losers still call themselves "youth") was in the midst of the grunge era but not nearly as influential as the other bands. they are, and will be remembered as a band that fit in with the times but didn't break much ground on their own, much like soundgarden and bush (who i wouldn't mind seeing). nirvana is very influential but just because they are, and sonic youth came out before them and they are relatively the same genre, you can't say that sonic youth is as influential as nirvana. that's blasphemy! also, you can't call sonic youth a real underground band. underground usually means that a band never was mainstream and doesn't strive to be. sonic youth on the other hand tried to market themselves as mainstream and failed, so their characterization as "underground" means "can't sell tickets because they are a bunch of losers".

and

This band fucking blows. They're a bunch of washed up losers. If SPEC was going to hire these clowns why didn't they just go and get the cast of the surreal life...they're just as washed up and just as bad. If they really wanted to get a good non hip-hop band what's wrong with Jimmy Eat World, Saves the Day, The Format, & Taking Back Sunday????

Personally you couldn't pay me to watch Sonic Youth. I'll definitely be going to the Jimmy Eat World/Taking Back Sunday/The Format show on 4/15 at the Tweeter Center in Camden.

WILLIAM EGGLESTON: VIEW FROM THE COURTHOUSE TOWER, MORRISTOWN, TENNESSEE

A NECK STRUNG WITH BEADS OF APPLE CORAL

Had dinner with the misses last night to celebrate our sixth month as a romantic entity. We decided the best way to celebrate the occasion was to get ourselves at a table at the Hash House and order some fine foods and drink (like the ones we see on TV) for once in our little lives. This meant a bottle of Baileyana 2002 Pinot Noir from San Luis Obispo with an appetizer of skewered chicken fritters with watermelon in a BBQ thai sauce. She had the all-blue crab cakes with butternut squash and barbequed vegetables in a chili mayo drizzle. I had to have the crispy Indiana-style hand-hammered pork tenderloin stuffed with griddled smoked mozzarella cheese, caramelized onions, fresh spinach, portabello mushroom and house charred tomato crowned with a BBQ cream sauce on a bed of horseradish mashed potatoes served with grilled corn on the cob. All dishes came garnished with a towering branch of rosemary. The plates were large enough to seat a six year old child, and the portions were so generous that despite our best efforts at eating a downright gluttonous load by even a trucker's standards, we were forced to slough off the excess into titanic doggy bags that hold tonight's equally sizeable dinner.

TEN SONGS WHOSE VIRTUES HAVE BEEN MADE VERY CLEAR TO ME LATELY

Paul Westerberg "As Far As I Know"
Sonic Youth "Stones"
Husker Du "It's Not Funny Anymore"
The Ponys "Little Friends"
M Ward "Vincent O'Brien"
Wilco "Handshake Drugs"
The Dils "Class War"
The Jesus Lizard "Slave Ship"
Giant Haystacks "The War At Home"
Stephen Malkmus "Pencil Rot"

HI BLOG HOW R U

Inspired by the delectable content and steady updatesmanship of my Silver Jews fan blog contemporaries The Dust Congress and In Oak, In Elm, I have noted the barometer, checked the seven-day forecast, tasted the air, consulted with my spiritual advisor and come to the conclusion that NOW IS THE TIME for me to launch my very first personal blog. It is my desire that the blog will be nestled up to like a Yuletide log by my friends and cowered from like a radioactive spill by my enemies.

Just kidding, I don't have enemies.

Well, maybe one. I don't think my boss at the art gallery/frame shop I'm a laborer for is my #1 fan since last Friday. I picked up a sheet of glass that broke in my clutches and stabbed the base of my middle finger with the resulting shard. In went the pointed end, out came some blood, and, depending on what the surgeon I'm scheduled to meet with this coming Friday tells me, the flexor tendon controlling the movement of the finger got either nicked or severed completely. Worker's comp has provided me with free medical appointments at the Occupational Medicine clinic, and complimentary surgery care of the gallery's insurance.

Anyway, the boss has put me on temporary leave despite my protests. I want to work; I did so the day immediately following the injury and was able to do quite a bit, too. Only thing I can't do is use the mat cutter, but there's plenty more chores I could be doing. But he insists I stay away from work and instead stay home and not get paid. Unfortunate, because getting paid is how I accumlate the precious lifesblood of today's modern economy: money. Need that money. Can't get it not working, and free surgery doesn't pay the bills. So we'll see what unfolds.

The blog is titled HIGH PLAINS BUSINESS LOOP after a poem I wrote a few years ago with the same title. Why don't I post it now:

High Plains Business Loop

The most automatic teller in the west
worked under a two karat guise of expired craftsmanship
with credentials from the continent house.

Minnesota Gas and Air came to reposess our breath,
working from the back seat of a true compression pick-up,
with minimal retaliation from the squad cars.

We were told to walk a metric mile
over polymer floors of phillips head allen wrenches.
We were perceived as snakes making oxbows in the flax fields.

At the clubhouse, I was ordered through
the dusty guantlet of minimum wage asphalt mix
before even contemplating calling shotgun.

I soaked my head in the Bay of Troubled Conquistador
where the skies operated like electric ovens
showcasing birds with Texas-sized wingspans.

You could feel the autoparks tremble like starched rayon
ironed into Indian clay as the chief of staff tore out a page
from his dog-eared copy of Sunset Magazine.

My well-being had become a conversational centerpiece
for a guest group of eagles and emigrants,
flanked by a trans-continental chamber of commerce.

Much of it made me think about Precambrian tennis matches
except with rattles mistaken for whistles
and a treaty declaring applause an Amazonian morse code.

It was the part of our minds reserved to study physics of
the feline lung, and verify the weeknight romances
constantly submerging beneath everyone's broken ideas.

These limited instances of casual health
diagrammed by the pectorals of an outdated mannequin
found floating in salted lakes and peppered oceans.

While Florida remains the soggy and stagnant denominator
conceded to the oversimplified fraction
that our ingrown union refuses to not become,

The golden numerator named California rises,
an effulgent nexus of charity nestled into
a blooming forest of surfboards and a bed of mestizo kelp.

So, there's a poem. I plan on sticking a few in this blog from time to time (mine or anyone else's I might find arresting enough). It'll be a revolving circus of music news and reviews and musings, current events and my complaints about them, criticisms and exaltations of the frightfully strange and dull world of mass media, art, clippings from the headlines of my personal life, stories, intoxicated observations, pictures of funny lookin' shit I come across, bold and beautiful things and reports of native or exotic plants I've spotted alongside the highway.