Motel Life, Lower Reaches

January 5, 2016 4:31 PM

Back when Roger Miller was King of the Road, in the 1960s, he sang of rooms to let (“no phone, no pool, no pets”) for four bits, or fifty cents. I can’t beat that price, but I did once in those days come across a cabin that went for three dollars. It was in the long, slender highway town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Charles Portis is most famous for writing True Grit. He also wrote The Dog of the South, Gringos, and Norwood. Here's an article about him in The Believer from 2003.

posted by Rustic Etruscan (37 comments total)

NOH FOAN, NOH PUUL, NOH PEHTS
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:37 PM on January 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sorry- I picked up a dose of the Proclaimers last time I was in Leith, and it still flares up occasionally.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:50 PM on January 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

It fades once you get about 500 miles away.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 5:04 PM on January 5, 2016 [10 favorites]

King of the Road is one of the three songs my dad knows and therefore my childhood lullaby. Doesn't everyone sing about vagrants to go to sleep?

His other two are Moon River and the Notre Dame Fight Song.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:10 PM on January 5, 2016 [8 favorites]

It fades once you get about 500 miles away.


Yeah, but you have to walk it off.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:13 PM on January 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

Charles Portis is always fun to read, and I'm glad he wrote about some establishments I hardly ever have the misfortune to stay in any more.

Truth or Consequences, if you are down that way, is a surprisingly nice little town. They have one motel with hot springs pools overlooking the river. Very nice. And a pretty high end art gallery, a big one, along with a few other smaller galleries that aren't bad. The museum is pretty odd, with a lot of information on how the town got its unfortunate moniker, and piles and piles of wonderful Indian pottery totally lacking information about their provenance.

Oh, and they have a big used bookstore, which when I was visiting, was being run by a guy who also played bass clarinet in an experimental music group.

If you look on the map, it is in middle of nowhere, like most desert towns. But sometimes I dream of retiring and settling down there. The dream quickly passes, but still...
posted by kozad at 5:14 PM on January 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

I stayed in a Motel 6 when the 6 meant something
posted by hexatron at 5:25 PM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you look on the map, it is in middle of nowhere, like most desert towns.

Most of the major towns running up the Rio Grande are about 45-60 miles apart. El Paso, Las Cruces, Truth Or Consequences, Socorro, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos....

That's because 45-60 miles is about how far you can ride in a day on horseback.
posted by hippybear at 5:35 PM on January 5, 2016 [8 favorites]

Roses are red, violets are purple/Sugar is sweet and so is maple surple
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:46 PM on January 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

King of the Road is one of the three songs my dad knows and therefore my childhood lullaby

"King Of The Road" was my favorite song when I was 4 years old, but my father never sang me lullabyes.
posted by briank at 5:57 PM on January 5, 2016

Now two hours of pushin' broom gives you $14.50 -- not enough for even a 8x12 room. (Assuming the proprietor is willing to pay you minimum wage under-the-table)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:08 PM on January 5, 2016

I like the REM version of King of the Road from Dead Letter Office, with them shouting the chord changes at each other.
posted by 4ster at 6:28 PM on January 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

I love stories like this because they remind me of people I grew up around but are no longer allowed to exist because the things they said took longer than six seconds to say.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 6:40 PM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wow, that is a great article. I haven't read any of his books, I will have to remedy that soon!
My favorite part in the article is in Motel #3 where the old man writes down a gravy recipe to give to the cashier at a McDonalds in hopes they'll use it.
posted by drinkyclown at 6:41 PM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

I read it, even though I was disappointed that it wasn't actually about Roger Miller, and enjoyed it. But, dang me, I'm enjoying the comments here even more.
posted by Ruki at 6:46 PM on January 5, 2016

My great grandmother had a music box that played King of the Road.
posted by enf at 7:08 PM on January 5, 2016

My father was an abusive, alcoholic son of a bitch. I never heard anyone say a kind word about him -- not even his sister. He loved Roger Miller and so do I. It's the only thing we have in common. When I was younger, and still living at home, and he'd been gone, physically and emotionally, for almost fifteen years, I could still see the anger in my mother when she'd catch me singing "In The Summertime" or "Adda Boy Girl" or "My Uncle Used to Love Me But She Died" or any of Miller's other, extraordinary songs.

My father split when I was two and I never saw him again. Before he died, two decades later, he tracked me down and telephoned. More then a quarter century has passed since that day and I still wonder if, in the time between him identifying himself and me cradling the phone, he could make out "Engine Engine Number 9" coming out of the stereo in my room. He couldn't have guessed it was his own copy of the record that was playing, but if I could ask him anything today, it'd be whether knowing that music was alive in me... does it fill him with regret at the time we didn't have together or a sense of triumph that something of him prevailed? And as I've aged and become more empathetic and humble, I've wavered back and forth as to which of those two possibilities I find more comforting.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 7:49 PM on January 5, 2016 [26 favorites]

Oh, and I love Portis. True Grit is a wonderful thing.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 7:53 PM on January 5, 2016

...once committed to a road, I stopped only for fuel, snake exhibits, and automobile museums...

I wouldn't mind hanging out with this guy.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:11 PM on January 5, 2016

This is great. Somehow I had it in my head that Portis's day was a lot further back.
posted by brennen at 8:43 PM on January 5, 2016

My opinion of the writing here kept swinging from "too cute by half" to "fantastic" to "insufferably smug." Though there's no way I would have walked away without finishing the article, for what it's worth.
posted by ostro at 9:21 PM on January 5, 2016

I really like it, really a fun read. Quite a character.

Reading this prompted me to purchase Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany

I'm not sure I'm up to a novel by Portis but this collection looks interesting.

Great post OP -- glad you posted it, I'd never known of Portis, really; True Grit to me was/is a movie, to find out about the writer, and how it was first published, and how it was praised, that's just very cool.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:46 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

The first concert I ever went to (at Ak-Sar-Ben) featured this song. I've always thought (since age 9 or 10) that me and my parents went to see Boxcar Willie. Maybe I've mis-remembered for all these years. Maybe there was a cover. Either way, I'm going to have this song stuck in my head for a while now.
posted by bendy at 10:08 PM on January 5, 2016

Great stories of getting off the road. And +1 for the Mercury Topaz of blessed memory.
posted by bryon at 12:43 AM on January 6, 2016

I "updated" it for a few myself and co-workers, back when I travelled a lot:

Webmail for sale or rent
Downloads…thirty percent.
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no internet
Ah, but..two hours of d’buggin‘ code
Buys an "flea-bitten" hotel room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road.

Third rental car, midnight plane
Destination…Bangor, Maine.
Old worn out slacks and shoes,
(but) I don’t pay no union dues,
I smoke old bugs that I have found
Simple, but way too many around
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road.

I know every engineer on every plane
All of their children, and all of their names
And every wireless net in every town
And every net that ain’t locked
When no one’s around.

I sing,
Webmail for sale or rent
Downloads…sixty percent.
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no internet
Ah, but..two hours of d’buggin‘ code
Buys an "flea-bitten" hotel room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road.


(apologies to Roger Miller)
posted by jkaczor at 5:41 AM on January 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

The toxic electric death pool was the highlight for me. My dad always made me swim in motel pools but we never encountered anything like that.
posted by tommasz at 5:58 AM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Most of the major towns running up the Rio Grande are about 45-60 miles apart. El Paso, Las Cruces, Truth Or Consequences, Socorro, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos....

I travel this corridor frequently since I work in SF and have family in LC. It breaks up the drive significantly if you think of it as an hour between each of the cities along the way (SF-Alb, Alb-Socorro, Socorro-TorC, TorC-LC). Each leg is between 70-80 mi except SF-Alb which is closer to 60.
posted by jenh526 at 6:46 AM on January 6, 2016

I loved that song until I moved to Maine -- now I can't get past the mispronunciation of "Bangor."
posted by JanetLand at 7:16 AM on January 6, 2016

Truth or Consequences, if you are down that way, is a surprisingly nice little town.

Well, sure, if you don't mind all the damn Zygons.
posted by webmutant at 7:46 AM on January 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's fun that so many comments in a thread about cheap motels and a regrettably overlooked writer who wrote about them overlook both.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:25 AM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I stayed at a $12 motel in Crescent City California in the early 1980s, with 3 improverished college age buddies. 2 double beds, $12. Only employee anywhere was a 12-year old girl who seemed to be a Vietnamese immigrant, and had little English.

The room was pretty foul even by the standard of 4 poor 20-year old guys drinking beers. Big weird stains, etc. We had 3 sleeping bags between us, and room for 2 of them on the floor. We drew straws and the loser had to sleep in bed without a sleeping bag.
posted by msalt at 10:27 PM on January 6, 2016

Ya happy now, Rustic Etruscan?! (I also love Roger Miller.)
posted by msalt at 10:29 PM on January 6, 2016

Love the motel article.

...for the comfort of those travelers who wince and hesitate over saying, “Truth or Consequences….
Some of the locals had taken to calling it "T or C.

I’ve never heard anyone call it anything other than T or C, all said as one word; tee-ur-see

As though I had accused him, say, of wearing sandals.

Now I must read more from this sage.
posted by bongo_x at 11:00 PM on January 6, 2016

I regret to report that it's quite possible to stay in T or C in a Comfort Inn next to a Denny's. Takes a bit of the romance out of the town.

The stretch between T or C and Socorro is the least interesting segment of the I-25 corridor.
posted by Quasirandom at 7:25 AM on January 7, 2016

The stretch between T or C and Socorro is the least interesting segment of the I-25 corridor.

Worse than Wyoming? Because damn.
posted by brennen at 8:04 AM on January 7, 2016

While I don’t put too much stock in online reviews when traveling, I find that TripAdvisor is really pretty good for finding somewhere to stay, especially for something besides the usual suspects, and really helps since I never plan anything in advance and have to find something last minute. Although I don’t take I-40 across the country that much, sometimes I will do whatever it takes to avoid west Texas (not counting El Paso, which really should be in NM). I’ve stayed at a couple of motels along the old Route 66 in the last few years. Apparently some people are trying to make a renaissance of it, with many little old motels remodeled and some kind of organization.

I can’t remember all the names, but I can attest that the Sunset Motel in Moriarty is decent little place run by nice people. You can get your nostalgia fix or just have a decent place to stay that’s not a chain.
posted by bongo_x at 10:18 AM on January 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Whoops, no, not worse than Wyoming. I should have specified the I-25 corridor of New Mexico.

(To be honest, I somehow had it in my brain that I-25 stopped on I-80 in Denver instead of I-90 somewheresville north of Casper. In that alternate universe, I hold to my original post.)

There is one amusing exit between T or C and Socorro, or rather there was. We first saw the sign for Mitchell Point not long after seeing the MST3K episode of "Mitchell." Alas, the humor of life imitating art did not wear well over the years.

Second the rec for TripAdvisor -- which is also good for finding the good, funky, non-chain restaurant in the sort of towns where not everything is on the main highway.
posted by Quasirandom at 3:24 PM on January 7, 2016 [1 favorite]