Well, I’ve never been to England.

But, I kinda like The Beatles,

Well, I headed for Las Vegas,

Only made it out to Needles.

Written by Hoyt Axton

Performed by the greatest American band of all time, Three Dog Night and unofficially accompanied at the top of his lungs today by T. Edward Long.

I call 3Dog, the greatest AMERICAN band because those British Invasion folks are odd. The Beatles fans are too sensitive to learn that the Fab 4 can’t hold a candle, and The Rolling Stones followers, well, I’m not sure what’s wrong with them but it is pretty serious.

I’ve never understood the success of The Stones; they’re awful. It’s not even that they are ugly – and they are ugly.  I kind of respect that trait in a man – it is just that they suck.

But, aside from that, I am in Needles, California. At the Taco Bell. Ok, which is another thing I don’t understand. Taco Bell is the culinary equivalent of The Rolling Stones.

Since I have been out west, I have stumbled on a little place called Del Taco – The Beatles of Mexican fast food.  Taco Bell is its poor country cousin.

Secretly, I am hoping for corporate sponsorship to help fund the rest of my expedition. I took a shot.

It is raining in Needles. Which isn’t even the poor country cousin of Las Vegas.

If ol’ Hoyt only made it this far he didn’t make it very far at all. They don’t even have a Del Taco here. And, that name – Needles. What they hell were they going for there? A cactus reference? Trying to draw the heroin addicts? What?

When we talk about names that lack finesse, though, we don’t need to go much further than Death Valley. I’ve been. I almost went again.

They didn’t try to pretty it up, or put the best possible spin on it that they could. They went nuts & bolts.

It is a valley. You come here, you die.

This is not to say that the people in charge of naming places lacked imagination – not at all. They showed their range when naming certain features of the area.

You got:

Badwater Basin

Dante’s View

Devil’s Golf Course

Manly Wilderness

Funeral Peak

Furnace Creek

Devil’s Hole (and, we are pretty sure which of the Devil’s holes they were thinking when they named it.)

And, Last Chance Mountain

They all seem to play to the same theme. Death by Hellish means.

The one that gets me, though is (pic related)…

…Scotty’s Castle.

That one sounds like something you would find at an obnoxious 8 year olds birthday party.

One where you take the little bastard a nice gift – something your mother wouldn’t even buy for you, and now you have to give it to him and he insults it anyway.

Then, he doesn’t want anyone else bouncing in his castle so you have to stand around and watch him, hoping he tears an Achilles or something. Yeah, that party would be pure Hell.

Yeah, so I nixed Death Valley and headed for Las Vegas.

On pins in Needles waiting to see Trixie!