August 24, 2024 • 49 mins
Dangr Dave Matthews joins the podcast and we talk about urban art, DFW signs, Oklahoma City signs, and more.
You can follow Dangr Dave at:
https://instagram.com/dangrdave
On Flickr at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dangrdave/
Check out Thomas Hawk at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/
And check out Fort Worth Architecture:
https://www.fortwortharchitecture.com/
You can follow Dangr Dave at:
https://instagram.com/dangrdave
On Flickr at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dangrdave/
Check out Thomas Hawk at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/
And check out Fort Worth Architecture:
https://www.fortwortharchitecture.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome everybody to another episode of International Sign Finders. Let
me get my mouth right, Welcome everybody to another episode
of International Sign Finders. Hopefully that sounded better, and hopefully
you had a great weekend of getting out there, hitting
the pavement, driving wherever you need to do, using your iPhone,
your DSLR, whatever you have to take pictures, get out
(00:43):
there fighting awesome signs and sharing them with us in
the sign finding community or sign hunting community, whichever you
want to call it. And tonight we have a guest
on from another guest on from the DFW area. He
goes by the name of David Dave and that is
what he's gonna call tonight because I forgot your last name.
(01:03):
But yeah, cool, So glad to have you on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Danger Okay, thank you. Yeah, you can just call me Dave. Okay,
just like the band.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, cool, that's right, it is Dave Matthews. Yeah, but
you're not as pretentious as Dave as the other day. Yeah. Okay, good,
that's kind of an assanction on my part.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, no, all good. I'm glad to be on this evening.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Awesome. So tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Dave.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Okay, Well, I have been in the Fort Worth area
for probably like twenty years or so, and just started
out taking a lot of photos around the area, just
bringing my camera to work and you know, arlive and
early taking some photos, going out at lunch taking photos,
and then taking some photos on the way home.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So what time if you don't mind asking, because I
do something similar, but I work at night. I work
late at night. How about you? What time of day
were you working when this all got started for you?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I was getting in the office at like six or seven,
so really I would go out, you know in Fort
Worth before anybody was really up. You know, a lot
of nighttime photos. So it wasn't that I was taking
them at night. I was just taking them really early
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Oh cool, That's that's what I do too. I either
take them in the afternoon before I get to work,
because I go into work about seven. Well, I leave
here about five forty five because Houston traffic. I've been
through Dallas traffic, I understand. Yeah, we had to go
through downtown a couple of times getting up to on
Oklahoma City recently. But you know, I go out, I'll
(02:44):
get some maybe golden hour shots in the winter, you know,
the beginning of nighttime shots, and then I got out
for work about four in the morning. My wife kind
of doesn't like me doing that around parts of Houston,
but you know, I don't bother anybody and they don't
bother me so much, and that's kind of way that
I view it.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, Yeah, it's it's good to be out there by yourself,
you know, taking pictures and you know, as long as
you know what you're doing, then it's it's it's a
great thing, you know, as long as you, you know,
are aware of who's around you and everything. So yeah, yes,
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
That is rule number one that I give people. Well
maybe rule number two. Rule number fun is half fun.
Like you said, Rule number two was keep your head
on a swivel, because yeah, there may not be anyone around,
but there may be someone who pops up out of nowhere.
I think the only time I've ever really had any
trouble was at like eight in the morning on Jensen
(03:38):
Drive in East text Jensen, which is this is a
little more rundown area is trying to revitalize itself, but
it has some guy just going across the four lane.
This is yilling. I mean I saw you taking picture,
so I mean, no, I wants it, So I should
have taken a picture of him, just to rub it in.
I know. That's me.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
A couple of those, Yeah, where the person swears you're
taking a picture of them and you're like, I'm not
even pointing the camera in your direction. What do you happen? So?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, yeah, I have a three sixty camera on me
that is a iPhone. Yeah, that's that's really working for you.
So yeah, we get into you know, you getting into
the whole thing. What was the sign or maybe the
incident or the series of incidents, incidences, incidents whatever. English
(04:28):
isn't my favorite language, even though it's only when I speak.
What was the thing that got you into sign finding?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Wow? Yeah, that's I guess it must be a series,
because I can't think of one particular incident. But you know,
I just started out. I have memories of signs, you know,
appreciating them before I was taking photographs, and then later
on them not being there. But I think, you know,
when I first got my camera here in Fort Worth,
(04:56):
I started following a website it was Fort Worth Architecture,
and so I would you know, see all the pictures
that they were posting on that site, and all the
the the architectural you know, commentary that was going on.
And I would go out and I'd be like, Oh,
that looks like a really cool building. And I started
taking pictures of the buildings, and then slowly started getting
into the pictures of the signs and graffiti and you know,
(05:19):
just whatever was out there. I just, you know, I
was like, this is my playground, you know, Fort Worth.
I'm just going to go out and take pictures of everything.
And and yeah, I always appreciated the signs a lot,
you know, just the classic old ones, even the new ones.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Now you say graffiti, I I I love urban art.
I think it's really cool. I've talked to some of
the local Houston folks. I'm not going to mention any
names because I don't want to out them, but there
is an art to a mural or somebody who writes
their name kind of uniquely. What is the draw for you?
(06:01):
And urban art? And that's in those whole bin diagrams.
I like to talk about a whole bunch of bin
diagrams like urban exploration, Antiking, Neon signs, and I even
say graffiti's in there, because when you're out in some
of these neighborhoods, it's kind of hard not to notice it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, yeah, I think I just appreciate, you know, because
it is a form of art, you know, And I
should have said murals as well as Yeah, just taking
a picture of the sign. You know, it's like, that's
an image of something that somebody created as art is advertising,
and I want to capture that. And I'm like, the
same thing holds true of a mural that somebody, you know,
(06:42):
took the time to create that art, and you know
it's not going to be there forever, so you know,
go ahead and take a picture of it and post
it and just appreciate it for what it is. And
there's somebody that's really popular in the Fort Worth area,
and I think even you know, in the DFW area
that I've been and following, and every time he's like
painting like crazy everywhere, and every time he posts something
(07:06):
about a new mural that he's put up, I go
out there and try to find it and take a
picture of it when I can.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Oh cool. One guy that's down here in Houston, that is,
he's on the scene, so I don't. I've never met him,
but i've I've I've exchanged words with him, good words.
By the way, he's a pilot pilot graffiti and he's
got a I'll give him a plug right here, go
and find his stuff. He does photo that just blows
my mind. And these are kind of the side roads
(07:33):
we go on on the show. It just blows the mind.
The photo realism of spray paint. How is that? I
tried it to spray paint and it looks horrible.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, yeah, I don't understand how they can get it
looking so good that when you're like across the street
or across a parking lot, it almost looks like a
photograph on the side of the building. How did they
do that? You could give me a million spray paint
cans in a million years and I couldn't produce something
like that. Now.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I know that they use different tips. There are there
are like hundreds of different tips you can use from
the fat boys that to like hyper like focus. But
even then with me, I'm it still looks so dreadful.
I know it comes with practice. But there's also a
guy who did the side of Oh s a G.
I think he did the side of the Heights House Hotel,
(08:26):
a new uh the old Astro motel that that's they're
off of. Colin Hollingsworth. I think, Okay, it is an
amazing piece of retro sci fi and he just it's
just so amazing. And I've also seen some of his
other pieces where he'll take like two sizes of a skull,
(08:48):
split it visually and then have like melting between the
two sides and it looks real.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, it's it's just amazing. So yeah, I'm like, if
people take the time to do that, you know, they're
obviously making a statement that's worth especially taking digital photography.
I'm like, that cost me nothing to take a pictureatly,
but if I don't, I may drive by, you know,
in a month and it's gone. And yeah, something very
similar happened, you know recently where you know, there was
(09:19):
this sign of I think it was Stevie Rayvon or
a mural of Stevie Ravon and it had been there
a while. I'd seen it, and you know, I just
never thought about taking a picture of it, and then
one day I took a picture and like a couple
of weeks later it was gone. I was like, man,
I'm so thankful you know that I got that picture
because you know that doesn't exist anymore. So and Steee
ray neon signs go ahead.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Especially with Stevie Ray Vaughan, he's kind of like in
the I know in Texas, but across the South with
his southern rock, southern blues sound, he's almost a radio
god for for the like the whole South, especially Texas
and Oklahoma. And for someone to take time to memorialize
him on a wall on a wall piece, is that
(10:06):
says a lot about a person who did it and
also the artist that Stevie Ray was.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah. Yeah, And there's still a couple you know, in
the Dallas area. There's some really cool murals of him.
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I think one of my favorite, and it's done in kind
of a pop art style, is over in Clined Street
off in Fifth Ward, I believe, and it's Patsy Klein
done in that you know, flat two D pop art
style and it has one of her one of her
saying songs there. I'll try and find a picture of
it or you and I'll send it to you, but
(10:41):
it just has heard and you know a song lyric
right next to her and it's done so well, and
it's I think it used to be an old record
shoper still is a record shop. It's one of those
underground ones that you know, you knocking on the door
twice and they'll answer finally. Yeah, so that will bring
(11:01):
oh yeah, oh man. There's so many talented people in
these in the world and I and I'm trying to
be one of them.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, are we all?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I think that's you know, they have their gifting
and I think, yeah, our gifting is, you know, the photography,
just like appreciating it and being able to memorialize it exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
And that is a great end of the first segment
of International sign Finders. When we get back, we may
get into the the amazing sign finder they can do
in both Dallas and for Worth proper, and maybe in
the third segment we may get into the suburbs of Dallas,
(11:44):
because man, I need to take about five days to
just travel around the area and I still won't get
everything here listening to International sign Finders. Welcome back to
International sign Finders. Glad you're still with us. We have
(12:06):
Danger Dave Matthews, not a singer from Charlottesville, Virginia, but
the sign photographer from Fort Worth, Texas on with us
tonight and we just talked about some of the cool
aspects of urban art graffiti. We go down side trail
sometimes on the show, all the ven diagrams all match
up and overlap somewhere and hopefully we're in the center
(12:28):
of all those ven diagrams. And we just talked about
some of the cool urban artor both Houston and Fort
Worth and Dallas. Now let's get into Fort Worth and
Dallas itself. About a month ago, I was going up
to see my mom who was in the nursing just
put in the nursing home, and we were trying to
find a place to eat in Dallas, and of course
(12:50):
you follow Google Maps, it takes you down all these
streets in downtown and kind of find out the place
we wanted to eat at is inside of a hospital.
That's not going to work. So in order to get
out of the area. Oh yeah, it was a Chick
fil A in a hospital. We're trying to find a
Chick fil A. You know, I have two I have
a nine year old and six year old. You know,
eating at a steakhouse isn't really an option much so
(13:14):
in the and the bypassing to get to another one
which was off the I think the Northwest turnpipe there
in Dallas. There's so many turnpikes in Dallas, Holy Cow
and fort Worth. But it took us down deep Elum Deep.
I didn't realize where I was at until I was like,
wait a minute, all these Neon signs and I saw
(13:35):
the deep Elum sign. I'm like, this is a this
is a small little mecca in Dallas of Neon signs,
Now what is it? And I also know about Letty's
boot Shop is one of my favorite signs. They do
one here the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show, but there's
the big one there in fort Worth and the stockyards.
(13:58):
I think I need to get off there. So what
is the attraction of Dallas and Fort Worth to a
sign finder?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I think, well, you know, first of all, just I
live here, so that's you know, where you play where.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
You are exactly live.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
But yeah, no, I just think, yeah, the signs are
like so different between Fort Worth and Dallas, and I
think there's so many. We've started losing some over the
last couple of years, which is kind of sad, but yeah,
we have some really great ones. In the Fort Worth area,
especially like you're talking about in the Stockyards, and you know,
I've seen in San Angelo they have another version of
(14:41):
that Letty's sign. So yeah, it's the stockyards is actually
like booming now and they've done a lot of upgrades,
so it's like kind of you know, upscale now as
opposed to know how it was when I first got
here to the Fort Worth area.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, and place like Deep Elm. Oh have you have
you gotten down to Deep Elm to take pictures of
of those signs yet? I have.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
It's it's been a while since I've been there, but yeah,
a lot of the a lot of the signs there.
I think I should probably have most of those on
my Flicker account.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, that's where I get. I'll tell you one thing,
when I saw the number of pictures that you have
on your Flicker account, I didn't feel as bad because
I have about nine thousand on my Instagram and when
I saw yours twenty seven thousand, I'm like, you know what,
I'm I'm okay because I kind of feel like I'm
flooding to her body.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, it's it's hard to know what the what the
good amount is, but I'm like, you know, I want
to get them out there and you know, be able
to post as many as I can, just to be
able to share those. And I still have like dozens
of memory cards that I still haven't even downloaded and edited.
So it's it's crazy. It's a never ending task.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You're talking about cards upon memory cards. I haven't reached
that level yet. I know my Google Drive, I'm getting
close to two hundred gigabytes, so I got to go
on and thin that out. Well. Do when you go
out and take photos, are you using like an iPhone
or using a DSLR or using a combination of both.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I use a DSLR primarily, so yeah, it's it's big
and bulky, you know, depending on the lens that I'm using.
I only use prime lenses, and so yeah, that's mainly
where you know, I'm just out there and I'll just
like fill up memory cards and grab the next one,
fill it up, and then you know check. You know,
Like I've just edited some from a road trip that
(16:42):
we took through Arizona. I just finally got editing those
like eight years later.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah that was road trip just the other day, eight
years later. Yeah, Yeah, I in Houston we don't have
the uh what is it? The something of riches just
the term is on the tip of my tongue, the
the overflowing of riches like Dallas does. And I can
(17:10):
say Dallas. I'm I'm not gonna mention for it worked.
I'm just talking about Dallas. I wish we had a
lot of those old signs that have been taken down
has come through over the years, like Gidos and the
pet or the Indian Chief Motel and the Hula Room
I think, or the Tiki Room. There used to be
a ton of them. They had to come down because
(17:30):
some councilwoman was like, no, no, no, you can't have
those up. And also Lady Bird Johnson and the billboards
is Houston was kind of her, you know, target because
Houston used to be billboard city. But you know, yeah,
places like Memorial I think we talked about this, Montrose,
the Heights, downtown has some, Midtown has a few more.
(17:51):
But if you know there isn't that preservation, well I
should take this back. I don't know the preservation tactics
or techniques they have in Dallas because you know, like
in Denver, if a sign starts coming down, you have
to fix it on the spot. You can't. As soon
as you take it down, it's down. It has going
to a collection or into the scrap yard. I don't
(18:13):
know what Dallas and Fort Worth have according to that
we uh with with just your cities alone, have you
taken time to you know, section amount and go and
hit them. Maybe I'm backtracking some I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, you know. And and over the twenty years that
I've been here, yeah, I've you know, taken pictures of
Fort Worth and Dallas and everything in between and everything
all all around, you know, just taking a trip when
I can, you know, hit all the little small towns
around here, and there's just yeah, it's a wealth. I
don't I don't know, you know, what they're doing to
(18:49):
preserve them. But you know, Wichita Falls is about an
hour away, and then it has a ton of signs.
And then Mineral Wells is like forty five minutes away
and it's got a ton of signs. So there's just
a lot around here, and yeah, it's you know, I
try to go back. You know, there was a time
where I was like, okay, I took a picture of that.
(19:11):
I don't need another picture of that. But you know,
as you start seeing some of them disappear, it's like, yeah,
I may have a picture of that, but it's worth
me taking another picture. Yeah, even if it's the same thing,
you know, it may be a slightly different angle, but
at least you know I've got one more of that before.
You know, I may drive by one day and you
know it's no longer there.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And that's how I feel right now because I'm trying
to I'm trying to document all the old signs, you know,
not the new Neon signs, because there's a lot of
new Neon. There's a kind of a revitalization in parts
of Houston of Neon, but like the old skeletons of signs,
the old Granada the there's a tech service that has
an old, cool mid century sign on top of it,
(19:54):
as well as another place down a side street where
at one time stopped and took a picture and the
security guard started coming around and looking at me a
little funny. I was like, you know what, I need
to get out of here. But but you know, as
my talents have grown, and as my techniques have gotten better,
and also as my technology has gotten better, I've been
(20:17):
going back and hitting these old signs so I can
do a presentation on Instagram. I don't know where I'm
going to do it. Maybe Flicker. Maybe those would be
my you know, get into Flicker side mode. But just
trying to you know, document them before they're taking down,
because one recently was taken down and I'm glad I
(20:39):
got it before the building and this old sign was
ripped down.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, that's awesome that you were able to do that. Yeah.
And like I said, we've lost a couple up here,
and you know, some of them. I've listened to some
of the other podcasts, you know, and y'all talk about Devor.
She's on Flicker. She posts a lot more on.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Flicker, which is crazy.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah. Then, I mean she still has her website, but
there's more images on Flicker. And when you know, sometimes
i'll message her on you know, one of the pictures
that I've taken and I'll say, hey, this is no
longer here, and then you know, she's like, oh man.
And you know, every once in a while when I
get a message from her, you know, when I see
her name, I'm like, oh no, what what what got lost?
(21:21):
And I'll click on her message and she'll tell me
some sign is no longer there that I have a
picture of, and so I'm like, you know, that's kind
of cool, you know that she lets me know. So yeah,
it's it's it's really neat, but yeah, it's sad when
one gets lost. You know, we recently lost the Rocket.
(21:42):
It's on Jacksborough Highway. It was this old night club.
It became like a muffler shop and it has this
this really cool you know, it just says rocket and
it's got these lines going to a star. That business
went out and the sign disappeared and there was like
a college cleaner sign. Why television sign that just like that?
(22:05):
That one didn't disappear. They stripped everything off of it
and painted it white. I think it was a church
movement into the building. And I was like, why I
would have bought you a sign if you'd have given
me that knee on one.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yes, or maybe starts something up like uh Corky and
Todd up in Denver. Uh Prky will go and you
know he'll find he keeps them in his like garage
and finds other people and other businesses they have storage
and he works with them to uh store them. Maybe
(22:35):
you could do something like that up in the Dallas
Fort Worth area. If something's coming down, hey we can
we can salve maybe not salvage it, but we got
a place where we can keep it until either goes
to a collection or somebody can salvage it or do
one of the above.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, you just never know when they're going down. There
was one there's one of the suburbs of Fort Worth
is Haltam City, and there was this like Big John's
motor and it was kind of you know, out of
the way. You wouldn't know it was there unless you
like knew it was there. And that one, you know,
it disappeared. But that was one of the ones that
(23:11):
Debora Jane chatted me and you know on flicker and
she said, Hey, that's now in Cook's garage out in
Lubbock or wherever that's at.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
So I was like, that's fine, you know, that's fair.
If it had to go somewhere, I'm glad it went
somewhere where they're going to restore it and you know,
put the neon back on it and light it up again.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Oh that's you know, it's kind of the mixed blessing
of uh, private you know, private collections sometimes they let
people from the outside in sometimes they don't, and hopefully
this place is letting people in, kind of like of
court Heim Me Jimmy hide out in Brokshire. Yes, thank you,
(23:52):
they do tours. I just need to get out there
and do it.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah, I need to go there too. I've heard a
lot about it.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Uh. I think Deborah and now Deborah correct me if
I'm wrong. She'll she'll let me know if I'm wrong
or not. I think they took some signs that didn't
have neon and put neon on them, as well as
restored old signs. So it's kind of a hodgepodge that
is just like a neon haven in the Houston area.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, I've been to something similar. When I was in Tulsa,
I saw, based on her site, the roadside architecture. I
went into what was it. It's some center the Koch
Lee or Okay, some kind of center like that. They
have like just a ton of neon signs. And I
(24:41):
showed up and I think they were getting ready for
a wedding or something. I just kind of walked in.
I had my U my perspective control lens and I
use it with a tripod and maybe they thought I
was the wedding photographer exactly. I just wandered in. All
the neon signs were lit up. I waved at them
and just started taking pictures and ended up getting like
(25:02):
I don't know, maybe like a hundred. There were just
so many signs there. It was amazing. So I can
imagine that's how that one the hemmy hideout is.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, and you know, talking about the suburbs of like
Holtom City, that's a great segue into our next segment.
And we've been talking with Danger Dave. Go and find
him on Instagram, on Flicker. I'll have links in the
show notes on how you can get connected with him
a little more straightforward and just say, hey, go search
for him. It might be a little bit easier for
(25:30):
all of us. But yeah, it's Danger Dave, Dave Matthews
out of Fort Worth. And when we come back, we'll
get into those, you know, those suburbs of Dallas to
have little treasures waiting for you to go take pictures of.
You're listening to International sign Finders. Welcome back to International
(25:57):
Sign Finders. Glad you're still with us. We have Danger Dave.
That's d A N G R. Dave Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yes, there is?
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Okay, cool, that's right. He's you know, he's edgy. He
takes out the valves where they need to be danger
Dave and Dave Matthews go and follow him on flicker
on Instagram. He's well worth your time following. Now we've
talked about Dallas and Fort Worth and some of the
surrounding areas. Now let's get into those surrounding areas, like
Whichita Falls is one of those places I'd need to
(26:26):
go into, Like they had the Triple D Hotel, which
I think is now no longer there, the sign is
no longer there, and writing that little strip or a
whole bunch of little hotels. They have awesome signs, and
I don't know how many of them are still there.
But also like downtown, what Tita Falls looks to have
a lot of cool stuff as well as another place
(26:48):
I just need to camp out, like Decater in the
middle of it all. It just start going around. Yeah,
I finally got the Yesterday's Cafe indicator, which has been
bugging me to get.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
But okay, yeah, yeah, like Petrified Station.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Ah, no, Yesterday's maybe that's it. It's Yesterday's cafe, is right,
off to eighty seven.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Okay, yeah, no know which one you're talking about. It's
that abandoned one. Yeah, that's a sign and it was.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Very, uh, very serendipitous that it was at that exit,
because you know, traveling a long time and having kids,
you gotta make pit stops. So there's a McDonald's right
there that we could go to. But like Grapevine, Uh,
I don't know if the colony has many, but Uless
h all those teller Wataga, wax A, Hatche, Duncanville, the Soto, Richardson,
(27:44):
Farmer's Branch, all those towns all around Dallas and Fort Worth. Yeah,
it seems to me that there is a treasure trove
waiting to be just well it's already been discovered, but
maybe being discovered by other sign finders. You know what
people's whistle about these areas.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Okay, well yeah, you know when you when you mentioned Decatur,
I thought you were talking about the Petrified Wood Station,
which I feel bad for you if you came through
and and you only got yesterday's because if you'd just
gone off on one of the side roads, there's the
Petrified Wood Station, which is this old motel made out
of petrified wood and it's got a big old neon
sign it. It's got actually a couple of neon signs.
(28:26):
I'll have to send you a picture of it. But yeah,
that's in the Decatur area.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And then you know out west of town is like
I mentioned a little bit ago, Mineral Wells. They have
like an old ice cream sign, an old bowling sign.
They've got several neon signs. So that's like I would say,
if you start your trip, I'd start in Mineral Wells
and start heading east. Okay, and after you go through
(28:56):
fort Worth and you see everything, there's a Highway one
eight which goes I guess it was like the old
highway maybe from fort Worth to Dallas. And that's like
my favorite road to travel if you're going between Dallas
and fort Worth, you know, I mean, it's not as
quick as I thirty or I twenty, but that's like
the old classic roads. So when you go through that,
(29:18):
you know you're going to go through the town of Hanley,
which is this old town. They don't have any neon there,
but you come in from there to Arlington and most
of the old neon signs are on that road. I
forget what the name of it is when it is
maybe Division Street in Arlington. They've got some old motels,
(29:40):
they've got clubs, they've got it's just crazy the amount
of neon right there on the side of that road.
They've got the old Arlington Theater that you know, is
really nice in pristine and there's just so much neon.
That's where there's the it's a big motel. They just
knocked the motel down and they saved sign. I'm having
(30:01):
trouble remembering the name of it, but the caravan in
I think. But it's got, you know, these big palm
trees and apparently they're gonna restore that sign and build
a new hotel there. So that's really cool that they
kept the sign. And there's yeah, there's just a ton
right there. And then you you keep going and you
(30:22):
come into Grand Prairie and that's the old you know,
main street through town, and there's so many signs there,
you know, like we were talking about offline. Uh, there's
Theo's Cafe, which has a neon sign that says Theo's
Restaurant or whatever. And then it's all about that Kramel
root beer sign, which is just like a classic, like yeah. Yeah,
(30:45):
and I've never seen it at nights. I've never been
there at night. I've ever been there in the day.
But I've seen people take pictures of that at night,
and it's just amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Oh man, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's it's it's really great. There's a lot there. There's
an old theater, you know, like I said, there's an
old theater in Arlington. There's an old theater in Grand Prairie.
You keep on going and you come into Oak Cliff
and there's the Kessler Theater and there's Neon signs all
up and down there, and it's you know, that gets
you into you know, Dallas, and then you know, if
(31:17):
you keep going and take a couple of turns, you
get into what you're talking about, Deep Elm.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
So that's that's the road that I would take through
there is.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
It's almost like Northwest twenty third Street in Oklahoma City,
the old Route sixty six.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
You like the Tower Theater and of the bomb shelter,
I think right next to it, and it's like the
Pony Boy. You have all that little section it's just
nothing but Neon and you have antique mall on twenty
third Street. Go another way and go a little bit
off and you have the Midtown Courts, which is amazing,
(31:57):
and they have the Kaiser ice cream place right there,
And I just wish I had more time when I
was in Oklahoma City. I was up there because, as
I said on my passion notes, my mom died recently.
So we were up in Oklahoma City about a month
ago to see her before she passed. And one of
the nights just to detox, get out of the get
(32:17):
out of I guess the house. You no get out
of my head. I just went out and took pictures
and I got to Automobile Ally. Have you been to
Automobile Alley there in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I have. I've spent like an in amount of time
there in Oklahoma City. So yeah, I'm familiar with everything
you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
These are really cool And I know that you've taken
pictures of Oklahoma City. I just didn't know how in
depth you went because I've only scratched the surface. Oh
my gosh. And so I was about ready to cross
the street to take a picture of Hideaway Pete's Pizzer
Rhea and my phone died. Oh no, yeah, and uh,
(32:56):
and I didn't keep track of how much the juice
I had. So kids, remember, keep a charger, get one
of those reduced like uh, elect electrical reducers for your
was it the the lighter put in your lighter, so
you're blasting two hundred vaults right into your phone, which
(33:18):
could kind of damage it, but it was Yeah, I
gotta give, I gotta give that, you know, shout out
right there, because holy cow, that's that has saved my
life so many times. But uh yeah, going through one
thirty eighty one through Decatur because that I always talk
about the two eighty seven corridor. You know, some of
(33:39):
those old signs are gone, but you know the relics
are still there, and there's still a lot of like
a Childress and Clarendon and a Claude and all those
little towns. Going up to Amarillo, you'll find a little
movie theater and it's worth your time, you know, going
off the beaten path, uh, the beat off the beaten
path to some of these old towns. How many treasures
(34:01):
have you found? Now? Do you use Google Maps to
find them or you go, like, you know what, I'm
gonna go to this one place, you know, yolows, just
let's just hit them up.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, I mean kind of some of some of each.
You know, I use roadside architecture a lot, and then
I in flicker you're able to, you know, go into
There's people I follow that take pictures of signs, and
so I'll go into their account and you know, see
what they have pictures of. And sometimes I'll make a list,
I'll draw a little handmade map. But a lot of the time,
(34:33):
you know, I just just if I'm going that way,
you know, just stop into town, drive around, see what's up.
And like you know, you mentioned, you know, going up
to eighty seven the multi theater. That was one that
was on my bucket list for a while and I
finally got to see it a couple of years ago
when I drove up to Denver and I was just
it was just like, you know, one of those ha ha,
(34:56):
you know it was. It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, And you know, as b Bailey, Bret Bailey and
I talked about, he goes to those little Canhandle towns,
all those little Panhandle towns around Amarillo, and he's always
finding something. There's there's always some little treasure to be found.
Maybe it's not a marquee like the Mulchi or some
(35:20):
of the other ones. I saw one up north of Amarillo,
and I kick myself for not stopping and getting it.
But you know, one of his favorite treasures was this
old appliance store that was abandoned back in the early
sixties because the Stages enacted a sales tax and the owners,
like I ate, the state's bookkeeper locked up the shop
(35:44):
and it's been closed ever since and it's still in
the family. That's crazy, just so many cool little treasures.
And maybe I took us to a side crack. I
apologize about that.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
No, No, that's great. I mean there is there are
so many. I mean, you know we're talking about DFW,
but I mean, I on my flicker, you know, I've
I make an album for all these little towns that
I go through, and there's so many, and you're right there,
you know, I mean, just the number of courthouses we have.
I don't remember how many counties we have in the state,
(36:15):
but I've got, yeah, something crazy like that, And I've
got pictures of a lot of those courthouses, because I'm like,
that's a work of art in and of itself, you know,
signs the courthouses, all these old buildings like you're talking about,
you know, the murals that are there. It's just, yeah,
there's so much that, you know, you just can't get
(36:35):
it all. And it's not something that I feel like,
you know, I can just you know, say that I'm
going to stop in at this one thing. If I
go to a little town, I'm like parking the car,
you know, and I'm just getting out, you know, and
it could be one hundred and seven degrees and I'm
going to be walking around for like four hours, you know,
just like taking a picture of everything because it's like,
who knows if I'll ever be back here.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, that's right. You guys are that's right. And you
guys are hotter than we are down here in Houston,
which is saying something.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, we like to keep it warm up here.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, you keep the heater on up there. I don't
know if the humidity is as bad up in DFW
as is down here in Houston, but you know, I
come from eastern North Carolina and the humidity is bad.
I can't here. I'm like, i want to go back.
Is dry there?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
There you go? But yeah, I mean, like I mentioned earlier, Yeah,
a tornado could take it out and I actually had
that happen like Sulfur, Oklahoma, Like, yeah, I went through
that town going to Tulsa. I did like a big
road trip all through Oklahoma, and I took some really
nice photos of that town and then, like I don't
remember how long ago it was, but basically the town
(37:48):
got destroyed and I'm just like, I wish I could
have got more, but I'm glad I got what I did.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
So you just yeah, And that's a great segue into
our fourth segment. We talked about, you know, all the
surrounding areas of DFW going up to Decatur, touched on
what Wichita falls a little bit, which that needs to
be on people's list a little more if we're going
to compare to anything. Geez, some of those southern Utah
(38:16):
towns with a lot of neon. That's what rich Tal falls.
Maybe Tulsa. Tulsa's probably a better corollary than like Moab
or Mantai or something like that. But when we come back,
we'll get it to Dave's bucket list a place to
go to and maybe touch on some other things that
we didn't get to during the previous three segments. You're
(38:36):
listening to International sign Finders. Welcome back everyone to the
fourth and final segment of this week's International sign Finders.
So glad that you're with us. We have Danger Dave.
(38:58):
That's d A N g R. Dave Matthews out of
the Fort Worth area, and we've been chewing the fat
about you know, small little towns and the treasures you'll
find them. You'll We've talked about Dallas and why you
should go there in Fort Worth and all those little things.
But the one thing I wanted to touch on I
forgot was your maps. I try to do, you know,
(39:21):
keep a list in Google Maps, but you can only
put eleven in your what is it, your stack of
places to go, which is frustrating, especially when you have
sixty nine places to go in Oklahoma City. I wish
they would allow more you to put you populate a
little more. But your maps are old school. You do
(39:42):
hand drawn maps.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, it's kind of weird. I don't know if I'm
like technologically not advanced. I use the BSLR so, you know,
and I use the computer work. But yeah, I just
you know, just draw a map, just a general view
of like the main highways in the city. I kind
of go through and you know, pull a list down
from roadside architecture and just start, you know, putting dots
(40:07):
where where they are so that you know, I'm like, okay,
if I'm in this part of town, these are the
ones I'm going to look up and I'll you know,
I'll look them up on Google Maps, and you know
it's so yeah, it's like hand drawn stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I do use Google Maps to get to the city
or to get to the town or the part that
I'm going to, but yeah, I just draw it by hand.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
And I know that Deborah tells me how to, you know,
take some of her maps and populate them onto yours.
But I wonder if she has and she'll tell me
yes or no, and I need to search her sit
a little more. She probably has, like, you know, a
bigger map with several you know, you know, locales, locations
to go to, and then you can you know, populate
(40:50):
that into your Google Maps. And maybe I'm just you
know slow when it comes to that. I just need
to do it better. But yeah, there's something about because
that's how I got around growing up. It was either
a hand drawn map. So I'm telling you turn left
at the big old oak tree and turned right after
you see the dead cow or hey, yeah, or you
(41:12):
draw a map and uh, you know that that's old
school and also you have you have a hard copy.
And I think also, you know, studies show that, you know,
the kids who write out notes not type them on
their computers, it actually sticks in their brain better. I
try that. I'm back in school and I try that
and hopefully it sticks. But yeah, this is just something
(41:36):
awesome about hand drawn maps, and that will take us
into your bucket list of places to go. We've talked
about all the places you've been, I mean, and if
you go to his Flicker account and also his Instagram account,
you'll see, you know, places like Whuson. I think you've
got Albuquerque and some of the little towns in New
Mexico and such at in Arizona. Where are some other
places that you want to go to that you haven't been,
(41:58):
or you've been but you didn't get any photos.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah, I think I'd like to go back, you know,
to the west of Tucson. Two sons about the furthest West.
I've been, so I'd like to, you know, see some
more of Arizona, going to Utah, going to Nevada. You know,
just some of the pictures I've seen of the Neon
and the desert and some of those desert towns. I'm like,
that would be really cool to be able to do that.
(42:25):
You know, it's just finding the time, you know, find yeah,
the ability to get out that far from Texas.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Now, I will tell you this, you know, Vegas. Vegas
is ridiculous. I told the story I think either last
week or the week before about you coming up to
the rim of the canyon or the valley aroundside of
Vegas and it's pitch black. You come out, as you know,
Saint George, Utah going south on fifteen, go through Arizona
and you go across the Malapa Reservation and it's pitch black.
(42:56):
You're like, my gosh, it's desolate. Where's Vegas? And you
hit the rim him and it's like, oh my gosh,
I'm like a mosquito heading towards the Zapper. Bring me in, daddy,
you know. But now that one of the coolest sights
I can remember is going south from Vegas to la
(43:20):
and you're there in the Mohave Desert and you can see,
you can literally see the state line between Nevada and
California because the casinos go right up to the border
and it's just bright freaking lights. I mean, the night
sky is lit up, and as soon as you look
past that, it's just desolate and that's California, and it's
(43:41):
such an interesting visual dichotomy when you come up to
that area. I forget the name of the town, but
it's kind of cool to to have that visual of
gambling is legal here, it's not here. Just to hit.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
You, Yeah, no, that that sounds really cool. Yeah, I've
I've seen pictures of some of that stuff, and yeah,
I'm just like, yeah, that would be cool, you know,
to just I would be like a kid in a
candy store, just you know, out there stuff like that.
So yeah, I think just that that is appealing to
me more so than you know, I've wanted to travel
(44:19):
the full length of Route sixty six, you know, but
I'm with the way cities are sometimes it's like that's
not as much appealing to me as just the wide
openness and finding some small town or you know, not
that Vegas is small, but you know, uh, you know
what I mean, just yeah, you know, finding the me
on out in the desert I think is much more
(44:41):
appealing to me than a big city.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Like Wells, Nevada, jeez Elie, Nevada, Battle Mountain, win Omacca,
all those little towns you know, some of them. You know,
that's where a lot of the cathouses are, the prostitution is.
So you know, got those signs. But one of my
bucket of signs comes from the Armpit of America, Battle Mountain, Nevada.
(45:07):
It's the Owl. It's the Owl restaurant, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. And my buddy, is it what was that?
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Is it like the Chicken ned or something? Am I
thinking of a different sign?
Speaker 1 (45:21):
It's a different sign. This was actually called the Owl.
It's the Owl Club and the Owl Steakhouse and the
Owl whatever. But my buddy is a regional manager for
NAPA and part of his area is Battle Mountain. So
every once in a while when he goes through, you know,
Northern Nevada. Basically Northern Nevada is everything north of Las Vegas,
(45:44):
to be honest with you, but he'll go through some
of these towns and semi photos of Neon and I'm like,
I am sharing this. I'll share with you the owl.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
I just looked it up. One of my one of
my Flicker friends has one.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Cool and yeah, battle Mountain is kind of the I'm
into the middle of nowhere in Penguins, Utah. I think
Battle Mountains even more middle of nowhere in Panguige.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Okay, yeah, that's yeah, that's an awesome sign. And yeah,
that's one of the things I love about like flickers.
I can just type in a city and you know,
it shows you your friends and most of my most
of the people that I'm following or you know, into signs.
So it pulls right up and I'm like, hey, there, okay,
there it is.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
And we're coming up to the end of the podcast.
It goes by so fast and I've been going on
side roads. Think thanks for keeping me between the bar pits.
But is there anything that you like to plug besides
you're like Instagram and your Flicker. Do you have anything
else that you'd like to give a shout out for
or a plug or a website or something like that.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Well, I would say what one of the you know,
going back to when you talked about what what kind
of got me into you know, taking the signs? One
of the photographers that I started following, like in twenty eleven,
and somebody that's like really inspired me. I've never met
the guy, but Thomas Hawk, like he just has amazing photos.
If you go on to his flicker. I don't know
(47:13):
if he does Instagram or not, but on his flicker,
he just has amazing signs. And you know, he's kind
of like we talked about, I have twenty seven thousand photos. Like,
you know, I think I was kind of inspired to
a degree because I think he's like trying to get
to a million photos before he died. So yeah, he's
(47:33):
got way more than me, and he's like traveling everywhere
and taking photos. And I would say, yeah, if you're
ever on Flicker, look up Thomas Hawk because he's just amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Now how does he spell his name.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Thh oh m as Hawk?
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Okay, oh there is I'm sorry, go ahead, No, I
was saying it is right in front of me. So yeah,
I went to hear the people you follow in. I
went there, and of course the first thing is somebody
dressed up in a green alien suit. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, he does the signs, but he takes pictures of
just crazy stuff. He's taken a lot of pictures of
Fort Worth. He's got one of some guy that has
a dog with a cat on its back and then
maybe there's a mouse on top of the cat. I
don't know. That's Yeah, he's got some really crazy stuff,
but it's all like really cool and he does a
(48:34):
lot of vernacular photography. I guess he calls it it's
you know, found photos of you know, he finds things
from like, you know, just old photos from the fifties
and sixties and scans them, fixes him up, posts him
on a site. So yeah, that's a really interesting site,
definitely worth a follow.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Well, that'll bring us to the end of our show.
We've had danger Dave da in g g R excuse me,
d g R. Dave Dave Matthews on with us. Go
follow him on Instagram, on flicker Glad you could be
with us and until next time hit the ground. Go
out and find those signs and share them with us.
Thanks for joining us.
Welcome everybody to another episode of International Sign Finders. Let
me get my mouth right, Welcome everybody to another episode
of International Sign Finders. Hopefully that sounded better, and hopefully
you had a great weekend of getting out there, hitting
the pavement, driving wherever you need to do, using your iPhone,
your DSLR, whatever you have to take pictures, get out
(00:43):
there fighting awesome signs and sharing them with us in
the sign finding community or sign hunting community, whichever you
want to call it. And tonight we have a guest
on from another guest on from the DFW area. He
goes by the name of David Dave and that is
what he's gonna call tonight because I forgot your last name.
(01:03):
But yeah, cool, So glad to have you on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Danger Okay, thank you. Yeah, you can just call me Dave. Okay,
just like the band.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, cool, that's right, it is Dave Matthews. Yeah, but
you're not as pretentious as Dave as the other day. Yeah. Okay, good,
that's kind of an assanction on my part.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, no, all good. I'm glad to be on this evening.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Awesome. So tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Dave.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Okay, Well, I have been in the Fort Worth area
for probably like twenty years or so, and just started
out taking a lot of photos around the area, just
bringing my camera to work and you know, arlive and
early taking some photos, going out at lunch taking photos,
and then taking some photos on the way home.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So what time if you don't mind asking, because I
do something similar, but I work at night. I work
late at night. How about you? What time of day
were you working when this all got started for you?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I was getting in the office at like six or seven,
so really I would go out, you know in Fort
Worth before anybody was really up. You know, a lot
of nighttime photos. So it wasn't that I was taking
them at night. I was just taking them really early
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Oh cool, That's that's what I do too. I either
take them in the afternoon before I get to work,
because I go into work about seven. Well, I leave
here about five forty five because Houston traffic. I've been
through Dallas traffic, I understand. Yeah, we had to go
through downtown a couple of times getting up to on
Oklahoma City recently. But you know, I go out, I'll
(02:44):
get some maybe golden hour shots in the winter, you know,
the beginning of nighttime shots, and then I got out
for work about four in the morning. My wife kind
of doesn't like me doing that around parts of Houston,
but you know, I don't bother anybody and they don't
bother me so much, and that's kind of way that
I view it.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, Yeah, it's it's good to be out there by yourself,
you know, taking pictures and you know, as long as
you know what you're doing, then it's it's it's a
great thing, you know, as long as you, you know,
are aware of who's around you and everything. So yeah, yes,
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
That is rule number one that I give people. Well
maybe rule number two. Rule number fun is half fun.
Like you said, Rule number two was keep your head
on a swivel, because yeah, there may not be anyone around,
but there may be someone who pops up out of nowhere.
I think the only time I've ever really had any
trouble was at like eight in the morning on Jensen
(03:38):
Drive in East text Jensen, which is this is a
little more rundown area is trying to revitalize itself, but
it has some guy just going across the four lane.
This is yilling. I mean I saw you taking picture,
so I mean, no, I wants it, So I should
have taken a picture of him, just to rub it in.
I know. That's me.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
A couple of those, Yeah, where the person swears you're
taking a picture of them and you're like, I'm not
even pointing the camera in your direction. What do you happen? So?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, yeah, I have a three sixty camera on me
that is a iPhone. Yeah, that's that's really working for you.
So yeah, we get into you know, you getting into
the whole thing. What was the sign or maybe the
incident or the series of incidents, incidences, incidents whatever. English
(04:28):
isn't my favorite language, even though it's only when I speak.
What was the thing that got you into sign finding?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Wow? Yeah, that's I guess it must be a series,
because I can't think of one particular incident. But you know,
I just started out. I have memories of signs, you know,
appreciating them before I was taking photographs, and then later
on them not being there. But I think, you know,
when I first got my camera here in Fort Worth,
(04:56):
I started following a website it was Fort Worth Architecture,
and so I would you know, see all the pictures
that they were posting on that site, and all the
the the architectural you know, commentary that was going on.
And I would go out and I'd be like, Oh,
that looks like a really cool building. And I started
taking pictures of the buildings, and then slowly started getting
into the pictures of the signs and graffiti and you know,
(05:19):
just whatever was out there. I just, you know, I
was like, this is my playground, you know, Fort Worth.
I'm just going to go out and take pictures of everything.
And and yeah, I always appreciated the signs a lot,
you know, just the classic old ones, even the new ones.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Now you say graffiti, I I I love urban art.
I think it's really cool. I've talked to some of
the local Houston folks. I'm not going to mention any
names because I don't want to out them, but there
is an art to a mural or somebody who writes
their name kind of uniquely. What is the draw for you?
(06:01):
And urban art? And that's in those whole bin diagrams.
I like to talk about a whole bunch of bin
diagrams like urban exploration, Antiking, Neon signs, and I even
say graffiti's in there, because when you're out in some
of these neighborhoods, it's kind of hard not to notice it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, yeah, I think I just appreciate, you know, because
it is a form of art, you know, And I
should have said murals as well as Yeah, just taking
a picture of the sign. You know, it's like, that's
an image of something that somebody created as art is advertising,
and I want to capture that. And I'm like, the
same thing holds true of a mural that somebody, you know,
(06:42):
took the time to create that art, and you know
it's not going to be there forever, so you know,
go ahead and take a picture of it and post
it and just appreciate it for what it is. And
there's somebody that's really popular in the Fort Worth area,
and I think even you know, in the DFW area
that I've been and following, and every time he's like
painting like crazy everywhere, and every time he posts something
(07:06):
about a new mural that he's put up, I go
out there and try to find it and take a
picture of it when I can.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Oh cool. One guy that's down here in Houston, that is,
he's on the scene, so I don't. I've never met him,
but i've I've I've exchanged words with him, good words.
By the way, he's a pilot pilot graffiti and he's
got a I'll give him a plug right here, go
and find his stuff. He does photo that just blows
my mind. And these are kind of the side roads
(07:33):
we go on on the show. It just blows the mind.
The photo realism of spray paint. How is that? I
tried it to spray paint and it looks horrible.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, yeah, I don't understand how they can get it
looking so good that when you're like across the street
or across a parking lot, it almost looks like a
photograph on the side of the building. How did they
do that? You could give me a million spray paint
cans in a million years and I couldn't produce something
like that. Now.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I know that they use different tips. There are there
are like hundreds of different tips you can use from
the fat boys that to like hyper like focus. But
even then with me, I'm it still looks so dreadful.
I know it comes with practice. But there's also a
guy who did the side of Oh s a G.
I think he did the side of the Heights House Hotel,
(08:26):
a new uh the old Astro motel that that's they're
off of. Colin Hollingsworth. I think, Okay, it is an
amazing piece of retro sci fi and he just it's
just so amazing. And I've also seen some of his
other pieces where he'll take like two sizes of a skull,
(08:48):
split it visually and then have like melting between the
two sides and it looks real.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah, it's it's just amazing. So yeah, I'm like, if
people take the time to do that, you know, they're
obviously making a statement that's worth especially taking digital photography.
I'm like, that cost me nothing to take a pictureatly,
but if I don't, I may drive by, you know,
in a month and it's gone. And yeah, something very
similar happened, you know recently where you know, there was
(09:19):
this sign of I think it was Stevie Rayvon or
a mural of Stevie Ravon and it had been there
a while. I'd seen it, and you know, I just
never thought about taking a picture of it, and then
one day I took a picture and like a couple
of weeks later it was gone. I was like, man,
I'm so thankful you know that I got that picture
because you know that doesn't exist anymore. So and Steee
ray neon signs go ahead.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Especially with Stevie Ray Vaughan, he's kind of like in
the I know in Texas, but across the South with
his southern rock, southern blues sound, he's almost a radio
god for for the like the whole South, especially Texas
and Oklahoma. And for someone to take time to memorialize
him on a wall on a wall piece, is that
(10:06):
says a lot about a person who did it and
also the artist that Stevie Ray was.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah. Yeah, And there's still a couple you know, in
the Dallas area. There's some really cool murals of him.
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I think one of my favorite, and it's done in kind
of a pop art style, is over in Clined Street
off in Fifth Ward, I believe, and it's Patsy Klein
done in that you know, flat two D pop art
style and it has one of her one of her
saying songs there. I'll try and find a picture of
it or you and I'll send it to you, but
(10:41):
it just has heard and you know a song lyric
right next to her and it's done so well, and
it's I think it used to be an old record
shoper still is a record shop. It's one of those
underground ones that you know, you knocking on the door
twice and they'll answer finally. Yeah, so that will bring
(11:01):
oh yeah, oh man. There's so many talented people in
these in the world and I and I'm trying to
be one of them.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, are we all?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I think that's you know, they have their gifting
and I think, yeah, our gifting is, you know, the photography,
just like appreciating it and being able to memorialize it exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
And that is a great end of the first segment
of International sign Finders. When we get back, we may
get into the the amazing sign finder they can do
in both Dallas and for Worth proper, and maybe in
the third segment we may get into the suburbs of Dallas,
(11:44):
because man, I need to take about five days to
just travel around the area and I still won't get
everything here listening to International sign Finders. Welcome back to
International sign Finders. Glad you're still with us. We have
(12:06):
Danger Dave Matthews, not a singer from Charlottesville, Virginia, but
the sign photographer from Fort Worth, Texas on with us
tonight and we just talked about some of the cool
aspects of urban art graffiti. We go down side trail
sometimes on the show, all the ven diagrams all match
up and overlap somewhere and hopefully we're in the center
(12:28):
of all those ven diagrams. And we just talked about
some of the cool urban artor both Houston and Fort
Worth and Dallas. Now let's get into Fort Worth and
Dallas itself. About a month ago, I was going up
to see my mom who was in the nursing just
put in the nursing home, and we were trying to
find a place to eat in Dallas, and of course
(12:50):
you follow Google Maps, it takes you down all these
streets in downtown and kind of find out the place
we wanted to eat at is inside of a hospital.
That's not going to work. So in order to get
out of the area. Oh yeah, it was a Chick
fil A in a hospital. We're trying to find a
Chick fil A. You know, I have two I have
a nine year old and six year old. You know,
eating at a steakhouse isn't really an option much so
(13:14):
in the and the bypassing to get to another one
which was off the I think the Northwest turnpipe there
in Dallas. There's so many turnpikes in Dallas, Holy Cow
and fort Worth. But it took us down deep Elum Deep.
I didn't realize where I was at until I was like,
wait a minute, all these Neon signs and I saw
(13:35):
the deep Elum sign. I'm like, this is a this
is a small little mecca in Dallas of Neon signs,
Now what is it? And I also know about Letty's
boot Shop is one of my favorite signs. They do
one here the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show, but there's
the big one there in fort Worth and the stockyards.
(13:58):
I think I need to get off there. So what
is the attraction of Dallas and Fort Worth to a
sign finder?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I think, well, you know, first of all, just I
live here, so that's you know, where you play where.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
You are exactly live.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
But yeah, no, I just think, yeah, the signs are
like so different between Fort Worth and Dallas, and I
think there's so many. We've started losing some over the
last couple of years, which is kind of sad, but yeah,
we have some really great ones. In the Fort Worth area,
especially like you're talking about in the Stockyards, and you know,
I've seen in San Angelo they have another version of
(14:41):
that Letty's sign. So yeah, it's the stockyards is actually
like booming now and they've done a lot of upgrades,
so it's like kind of you know, upscale now as
opposed to know how it was when I first got
here to the Fort Worth area.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, and place like Deep Elm. Oh have you have
you gotten down to Deep Elm to take pictures of
of those signs yet? I have.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
It's it's been a while since I've been there, but yeah,
a lot of the a lot of the signs there.
I think I should probably have most of those on
my Flicker account.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, that's where I get. I'll tell you one thing,
when I saw the number of pictures that you have
on your Flicker account, I didn't feel as bad because
I have about nine thousand on my Instagram and when
I saw yours twenty seven thousand, I'm like, you know what,
I'm I'm okay because I kind of feel like I'm
flooding to her body.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, it's it's hard to know what the what the
good amount is, but I'm like, you know, I want
to get them out there and you know, be able
to post as many as I can, just to be
able to share those. And I still have like dozens
of memory cards that I still haven't even downloaded and edited.
So it's it's crazy. It's a never ending task.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You're talking about cards upon memory cards. I haven't reached
that level yet. I know my Google Drive, I'm getting
close to two hundred gigabytes, so I got to go
on and thin that out. Well. Do when you go
out and take photos, are you using like an iPhone
or using a DSLR or using a combination of both.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I use a DSLR primarily, so yeah, it's it's big
and bulky, you know, depending on the lens that I'm using.
I only use prime lenses, and so yeah, that's mainly
where you know, I'm just out there and I'll just
like fill up memory cards and grab the next one,
fill it up, and then you know check. You know,
Like I've just edited some from a road trip that
(16:42):
we took through Arizona. I just finally got editing those
like eight years later.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah that was road trip just the other day, eight
years later. Yeah, Yeah, I in Houston we don't have
the uh what is it? The something of riches just
the term is on the tip of my tongue, the
the overflowing of riches like Dallas does. And I can
(17:10):
say Dallas. I'm I'm not gonna mention for it worked.
I'm just talking about Dallas. I wish we had a
lot of those old signs that have been taken down
has come through over the years, like Gidos and the
pet or the Indian Chief Motel and the Hula Room
I think, or the Tiki Room. There used to be
a ton of them. They had to come down because
(17:30):
some councilwoman was like, no, no, no, you can't have
those up. And also Lady Bird Johnson and the billboards
is Houston was kind of her, you know, target because
Houston used to be billboard city. But you know, yeah,
places like Memorial I think we talked about this, Montrose,
the Heights, downtown has some, Midtown has a few more.
(17:51):
But if you know there isn't that preservation, well I
should take this back. I don't know the preservation tactics
or techniques they have in Dallas because you know, like
in Denver, if a sign starts coming down, you have
to fix it on the spot. You can't. As soon
as you take it down, it's down. It has going
to a collection or into the scrap yard. I don't
(18:13):
know what Dallas and Fort Worth have according to that
we uh with with just your cities alone, have you
taken time to you know, section amount and go and
hit them. Maybe I'm backtracking some I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, you know. And and over the twenty years that
I've been here, yeah, I've you know, taken pictures of
Fort Worth and Dallas and everything in between and everything
all all around, you know, just taking a trip when
I can, you know, hit all the little small towns
around here, and there's just yeah, it's a wealth. I
don't I don't know, you know, what they're doing to
(18:49):
preserve them. But you know, Wichita Falls is about an
hour away, and then it has a ton of signs.
And then Mineral Wells is like forty five minutes away
and it's got a ton of signs. So there's just
a lot around here, and yeah, it's you know, I
try to go back. You know, there was a time
where I was like, okay, I took a picture of that.
(19:11):
I don't need another picture of that. But you know,
as you start seeing some of them disappear, it's like, yeah,
I may have a picture of that, but it's worth
me taking another picture. Yeah, even if it's the same thing,
you know, it may be a slightly different angle, but
at least you know I've got one more of that before.
You know, I may drive by one day and you
know it's no longer there.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And that's how I feel right now because I'm trying
to I'm trying to document all the old signs, you know,
not the new Neon signs, because there's a lot of
new Neon. There's a kind of a revitalization in parts
of Houston of Neon, but like the old skeletons of signs,
the old Granada the there's a tech service that has
an old, cool mid century sign on top of it,
(19:54):
as well as another place down a side street where
at one time stopped and took a picture and the
security guard started coming around and looking at me a
little funny. I was like, you know what, I need
to get out of here. But but you know, as
my talents have grown, and as my techniques have gotten better,
and also as my technology has gotten better, I've been
(20:17):
going back and hitting these old signs so I can
do a presentation on Instagram. I don't know where I'm
going to do it. Maybe Flicker. Maybe those would be
my you know, get into Flicker side mode. But just
trying to you know, document them before they're taking down,
because one recently was taken down and I'm glad I
(20:39):
got it before the building and this old sign was
ripped down.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, that's awesome that you were able to do that. Yeah.
And like I said, we've lost a couple up here,
and you know, some of them. I've listened to some
of the other podcasts, you know, and y'all talk about Devor.
She's on Flicker. She posts a lot more on.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Flicker, which is crazy.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah. Then, I mean she still has her website, but
there's more images on Flicker. And when you know, sometimes
i'll message her on you know, one of the pictures
that I've taken and I'll say, hey, this is no
longer here, and then you know, she's like, oh man.
And you know, every once in a while when I
get a message from her, you know, when I see
her name, I'm like, oh no, what what what got lost?
(21:21):
And I'll click on her message and she'll tell me
some sign is no longer there that I have a
picture of, and so I'm like, you know, that's kind
of cool, you know that she lets me know. So yeah,
it's it's it's really neat, but yeah, it's sad when
one gets lost. You know, we recently lost the Rocket.
(21:42):
It's on Jacksborough Highway. It was this old night club.
It became like a muffler shop and it has this
this really cool you know, it just says rocket and
it's got these lines going to a star. That business
went out and the sign disappeared and there was like
a college cleaner sign. Why television sign that just like that?
(22:05):
That one didn't disappear. They stripped everything off of it
and painted it white. I think it was a church
movement into the building. And I was like, why I
would have bought you a sign if you'd have given
me that knee on one.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yes, or maybe starts something up like uh Corky and
Todd up in Denver. Uh Prky will go and you
know he'll find he keeps them in his like garage
and finds other people and other businesses they have storage
and he works with them to uh store them. Maybe
(22:35):
you could do something like that up in the Dallas
Fort Worth area. If something's coming down, hey we can
we can salve maybe not salvage it, but we got
a place where we can keep it until either goes
to a collection or somebody can salvage it or do
one of the above.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, you just never know when they're going down. There
was one there's one of the suburbs of Fort Worth
is Haltam City, and there was this like Big John's
motor and it was kind of you know, out of
the way. You wouldn't know it was there unless you
like knew it was there. And that one, you know,
it disappeared. But that was one of the ones that
(23:11):
Debora Jane chatted me and you know on flicker and
she said, Hey, that's now in Cook's garage out in
Lubbock or wherever that's at.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
So I was like, that's fine, you know, that's fair.
If it had to go somewhere, I'm glad it went
somewhere where they're going to restore it and you know,
put the neon back on it and light it up again.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Oh that's you know, it's kind of the mixed blessing
of uh, private you know, private collections sometimes they let
people from the outside in sometimes they don't, and hopefully
this place is letting people in, kind of like of
court Heim Me Jimmy hide out in Brokshire. Yes, thank you,
(23:52):
they do tours. I just need to get out there
and do it.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah, I need to go there too. I've heard a
lot about it.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Uh. I think Deborah and now Deborah correct me if
I'm wrong. She'll she'll let me know if I'm wrong
or not. I think they took some signs that didn't
have neon and put neon on them, as well as
restored old signs. So it's kind of a hodgepodge that
is just like a neon haven in the Houston area.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, I've been to something similar. When I was in Tulsa,
I saw, based on her site, the roadside architecture. I
went into what was it. It's some center the Koch
Lee or Okay, some kind of center like that. They
have like just a ton of neon signs. And I
(24:41):
showed up and I think they were getting ready for
a wedding or something. I just kind of walked in.
I had my U my perspective control lens and I
use it with a tripod and maybe they thought I
was the wedding photographer exactly. I just wandered in. All
the neon signs were lit up. I waved at them
and just started taking pictures and ended up getting like
(25:02):
I don't know, maybe like a hundred. There were just
so many signs there. It was amazing. So I can
imagine that's how that one the hemmy hideout is.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, and you know, talking about the suburbs of like
Holtom City, that's a great segue into our next segment.
And we've been talking with Danger Dave. Go and find
him on Instagram, on Flicker. I'll have links in the
show notes on how you can get connected with him
a little more straightforward and just say, hey, go search
for him. It might be a little bit easier for
(25:30):
all of us. But yeah, it's Danger Dave, Dave Matthews
out of Fort Worth. And when we come back, we'll
get into those, you know, those suburbs of Dallas to
have little treasures waiting for you to go take pictures of.
You're listening to International sign Finders. Welcome back to International
(25:57):
Sign Finders. Glad you're still with us. We have Danger Dave.
That's d A N G R. Dave Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yes, there is?
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Okay, cool, that's right. He's you know, he's edgy. He
takes out the valves where they need to be danger
Dave and Dave Matthews go and follow him on flicker
on Instagram. He's well worth your time following. Now we've
talked about Dallas and Fort Worth and some of the
surrounding areas. Now let's get into those surrounding areas, like
Whichita Falls is one of those places I'd need to
(26:26):
go into, Like they had the Triple D Hotel, which
I think is now no longer there, the sign is
no longer there, and writing that little strip or a
whole bunch of little hotels. They have awesome signs, and
I don't know how many of them are still there.
But also like downtown, what Tita Falls looks to have
a lot of cool stuff as well as another place
(26:48):
I just need to camp out, like Decater in the
middle of it all. It just start going around. Yeah,
I finally got the Yesterday's Cafe indicator, which has been
bugging me to get.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
But okay, yeah, yeah, like Petrified Station.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Ah, no, Yesterday's maybe that's it. It's Yesterday's cafe, is right,
off to eighty seven.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Okay, yeah, no know which one you're talking about. It's
that abandoned one. Yeah, that's a sign and it was.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Very, uh, very serendipitous that it was at that exit,
because you know, traveling a long time and having kids,
you gotta make pit stops. So there's a McDonald's right
there that we could go to. But like Grapevine, Uh,
I don't know if the colony has many, but Uless
h all those teller Wataga, wax A, Hatche, Duncanville, the Soto, Richardson,
(27:44):
Farmer's Branch, all those towns all around Dallas and Fort Worth. Yeah,
it seems to me that there is a treasure trove
waiting to be just well it's already been discovered, but
maybe being discovered by other sign finders. You know what
people's whistle about these areas.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Okay, well yeah, you know when you when you mentioned Decatur,
I thought you were talking about the Petrified Wood Station,
which I feel bad for you if you came through
and and you only got yesterday's because if you'd just
gone off on one of the side roads, there's the
Petrified Wood Station, which is this old motel made out
of petrified wood and it's got a big old neon
sign it. It's got actually a couple of neon signs.
(28:26):
I'll have to send you a picture of it. But yeah,
that's in the Decatur area.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And then you know out west of town is like
I mentioned a little bit ago, Mineral Wells. They have
like an old ice cream sign, an old bowling sign.
They've got several neon signs. So that's like I would say,
if you start your trip, I'd start in Mineral Wells
and start heading east. Okay, and after you go through
(28:56):
fort Worth and you see everything, there's a Highway one
eight which goes I guess it was like the old
highway maybe from fort Worth to Dallas. And that's like
my favorite road to travel if you're going between Dallas
and fort Worth, you know, I mean, it's not as
quick as I thirty or I twenty, but that's like
the old classic roads. So when you go through that,
(29:18):
you know you're going to go through the town of Hanley,
which is this old town. They don't have any neon there,
but you come in from there to Arlington and most
of the old neon signs are on that road. I
forget what the name of it is when it is
maybe Division Street in Arlington. They've got some old motels,
(29:40):
they've got clubs, they've got it's just crazy the amount
of neon right there on the side of that road.
They've got the old Arlington Theater that you know, is
really nice in pristine and there's just so much neon.
That's where there's the it's a big motel. They just
knocked the motel down and they saved sign. I'm having
(30:01):
trouble remembering the name of it, but the caravan in
I think. But it's got, you know, these big palm
trees and apparently they're gonna restore that sign and build
a new hotel there. So that's really cool that they
kept the sign. And there's yeah, there's just a ton
right there. And then you you keep going and you
(30:22):
come into Grand Prairie and that's the old you know,
main street through town, and there's so many signs there,
you know, like we were talking about offline. Uh, there's
Theo's Cafe, which has a neon sign that says Theo's
Restaurant or whatever. And then it's all about that Kramel
root beer sign, which is just like a classic, like yeah. Yeah,
(30:45):
and I've never seen it at nights. I've never been
there at night. I've ever been there in the day.
But I've seen people take pictures of that at night,
and it's just amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Oh man, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's it's it's really great. There's a lot there. There's
an old theater, you know, like I said, there's an
old theater in Arlington. There's an old theater in Grand Prairie.
You keep on going and you come into Oak Cliff
and there's the Kessler Theater and there's Neon signs all
up and down there, and it's you know, that gets
you into you know, Dallas, and then you know, if
(31:17):
you keep going and take a couple of turns, you
get into what you're talking about, Deep Elm.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
So that's that's the road that I would take through
there is.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
It's almost like Northwest twenty third Street in Oklahoma City,
the old Route sixty six.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
You like the Tower Theater and of the bomb shelter,
I think right next to it, and it's like the
Pony Boy. You have all that little section it's just
nothing but Neon and you have antique mall on twenty
third Street. Go another way and go a little bit
off and you have the Midtown Courts, which is amazing,
(31:57):
and they have the Kaiser ice cream place right there,
And I just wish I had more time when I
was in Oklahoma City. I was up there because, as
I said on my passion notes, my mom died recently.
So we were up in Oklahoma City about a month
ago to see her before she passed. And one of
the nights just to detox, get out of the get
(32:17):
out of I guess the house. You no get out
of my head. I just went out and took pictures
and I got to Automobile Ally. Have you been to
Automobile Alley there in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I have. I've spent like an in amount of time
there in Oklahoma City. So yeah, I'm familiar with everything
you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
These are really cool And I know that you've taken
pictures of Oklahoma City. I just didn't know how in
depth you went because I've only scratched the surface. Oh
my gosh. And so I was about ready to cross
the street to take a picture of Hideaway Pete's Pizzer
Rhea and my phone died. Oh no, yeah, and uh,
(32:56):
and I didn't keep track of how much the juice
I had. So kids, remember, keep a charger, get one
of those reduced like uh, elect electrical reducers for your
was it the the lighter put in your lighter, so
you're blasting two hundred vaults right into your phone, which
(33:18):
could kind of damage it, but it was Yeah, I
gotta give, I gotta give that, you know, shout out
right there, because holy cow, that's that has saved my
life so many times. But uh yeah, going through one
thirty eighty one through Decatur because that I always talk
about the two eighty seven corridor. You know, some of
(33:39):
those old signs are gone, but you know the relics
are still there, and there's still a lot of like
a Childress and Clarendon and a Claude and all those
little towns. Going up to Amarillo, you'll find a little
movie theater and it's worth your time, you know, going
off the beaten path, uh, the beat off the beaten
path to some of these old towns. How many treasures
(34:01):
have you found? Now? Do you use Google Maps to
find them or you go, like, you know what, I'm
gonna go to this one place, you know, yolows, just
let's just hit them up.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, I mean kind of some of some of each.
You know, I use roadside architecture a lot, and then
I in flicker you're able to, you know, go into
There's people I follow that take pictures of signs, and
so I'll go into their account and you know, see
what they have pictures of. And sometimes I'll make a list,
I'll draw a little handmade map. But a lot of the time,
(34:33):
you know, I just just if I'm going that way,
you know, just stop into town, drive around, see what's up.
And like you know, you mentioned, you know, going up
to eighty seven the multi theater. That was one that
was on my bucket list for a while and I
finally got to see it a couple of years ago
when I drove up to Denver and I was just
it was just like, you know, one of those ha ha,
(34:56):
you know it was. It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, And you know, as b Bailey, Bret Bailey and
I talked about, he goes to those little Canhandle towns,
all those little Panhandle towns around Amarillo, and he's always
finding something. There's there's always some little treasure to be found.
Maybe it's not a marquee like the Mulchi or some
(35:20):
of the other ones. I saw one up north of Amarillo,
and I kick myself for not stopping and getting it.
But you know, one of his favorite treasures was this
old appliance store that was abandoned back in the early
sixties because the Stages enacted a sales tax and the owners,
like I ate, the state's bookkeeper locked up the shop
(35:44):
and it's been closed ever since and it's still in
the family. That's crazy, just so many cool little treasures.
And maybe I took us to a side crack. I
apologize about that.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
No, No, that's great. I mean there is there are
so many. I mean, you know we're talking about DFW,
but I mean, I on my flicker, you know, I've
I make an album for all these little towns that
I go through, and there's so many, and you're right there,
you know, I mean, just the number of courthouses we have.
I don't remember how many counties we have in the state,
(36:15):
but I've got, yeah, something crazy like that, And I've
got pictures of a lot of those courthouses, because I'm like,
that's a work of art in and of itself, you know,
signs the courthouses, all these old buildings like you're talking about,
you know, the murals that are there. It's just, yeah,
there's so much that, you know, you just can't get
(36:35):
it all. And it's not something that I feel like,
you know, I can just you know, say that I'm
going to stop in at this one thing. If I
go to a little town, I'm like parking the car,
you know, and I'm just getting out, you know, and
it could be one hundred and seven degrees and I'm
going to be walking around for like four hours, you know,
just like taking a picture of everything because it's like,
who knows if I'll ever be back here.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, that's right. You guys are that's right. And you
guys are hotter than we are down here in Houston,
which is saying something.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, we like to keep it warm up here.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, you keep the heater on up there. I don't
know if the humidity is as bad up in DFW
as is down here in Houston, but you know, I
come from eastern North Carolina and the humidity is bad.
I can't here. I'm like, i want to go back.
Is dry there?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
There you go? But yeah, I mean, like I mentioned earlier, Yeah,
a tornado could take it out and I actually had
that happen like Sulfur, Oklahoma, Like, yeah, I went through
that town going to Tulsa. I did like a big
road trip all through Oklahoma, and I took some really
nice photos of that town and then, like I don't
remember how long ago it was, but basically the town
(37:48):
got destroyed and I'm just like, I wish I could
have got more, but I'm glad I got what I did.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
So you just yeah, And that's a great segue into
our fourth segment. We talked about, you know, all the
surrounding areas of DFW going up to Decatur, touched on
what Wichita falls a little bit, which that needs to
be on people's list a little more if we're going
to compare to anything. Geez, some of those southern Utah
(38:16):
towns with a lot of neon. That's what rich Tal falls.
Maybe Tulsa. Tulsa's probably a better corollary than like Moab
or Mantai or something like that. But when we come back,
we'll get it to Dave's bucket list a place to
go to and maybe touch on some other things that
we didn't get to during the previous three segments. You're
(38:36):
listening to International sign Finders. Welcome back everyone to the
fourth and final segment of this week's International sign Finders.
So glad that you're with us. We have Danger Dave.
(38:58):
That's d A N g R. Dave Matthews out of
the Fort Worth area, and we've been chewing the fat
about you know, small little towns and the treasures you'll
find them. You'll We've talked about Dallas and why you
should go there in Fort Worth and all those little things.
But the one thing I wanted to touch on I
forgot was your maps. I try to do, you know,
(39:21):
keep a list in Google Maps, but you can only
put eleven in your what is it, your stack of
places to go, which is frustrating, especially when you have
sixty nine places to go in Oklahoma City. I wish
they would allow more you to put you populate a
little more. But your maps are old school. You do
(39:42):
hand drawn maps.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, it's kind of weird. I don't know if I'm
like technologically not advanced. I use the BSLR so, you know,
and I use the computer work. But yeah, I just
you know, just draw a map, just a general view
of like the main highways in the city. I kind
of go through and you know, pull a list down
from roadside architecture and just start, you know, putting dots
(40:07):
where where they are so that you know, I'm like, okay,
if I'm in this part of town, these are the
ones I'm going to look up and I'll you know,
I'll look them up on Google Maps, and you know
it's so yeah, it's like hand drawn stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I do use Google Maps to get to the city
or to get to the town or the part that
I'm going to, but yeah, I just draw it by hand.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
And I know that Deborah tells me how to, you know,
take some of her maps and populate them onto yours.
But I wonder if she has and she'll tell me
yes or no, and I need to search her sit
a little more. She probably has, like, you know, a
bigger map with several you know, you know, locales, locations
to go to, and then you can you know, populate
(40:50):
that into your Google Maps. And maybe I'm just you
know slow when it comes to that. I just need
to do it better. But yeah, there's something about because
that's how I got around growing up. It was either
a hand drawn map. So I'm telling you turn left
at the big old oak tree and turned right after
you see the dead cow or hey, yeah, or you
(41:12):
draw a map and uh, you know that that's old
school and also you have you have a hard copy.
And I think also, you know, studies show that, you know,
the kids who write out notes not type them on
their computers, it actually sticks in their brain better. I
try that. I'm back in school and I try that
and hopefully it sticks. But yeah, this is just something
(41:36):
awesome about hand drawn maps, and that will take us
into your bucket list of places to go. We've talked
about all the places you've been, I mean, and if
you go to his Flicker account and also his Instagram account,
you'll see, you know, places like Whuson. I think you've
got Albuquerque and some of the little towns in New
Mexico and such at in Arizona. Where are some other
places that you want to go to that you haven't been,
(41:58):
or you've been but you didn't get any photos.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah, I think I'd like to go back, you know,
to the west of Tucson. Two sons about the furthest West.
I've been, so I'd like to, you know, see some
more of Arizona, going to Utah, going to Nevada. You know,
just some of the pictures I've seen of the Neon
and the desert and some of those desert towns. I'm like,
that would be really cool to be able to do that.
(42:25):
You know, it's just finding the time, you know, find yeah,
the ability to get out that far from Texas.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Now, I will tell you this, you know, Vegas. Vegas
is ridiculous. I told the story I think either last
week or the week before about you coming up to
the rim of the canyon or the valley aroundside of
Vegas and it's pitch black. You come out, as you know,
Saint George, Utah going south on fifteen, go through Arizona
and you go across the Malapa Reservation and it's pitch black.
(42:56):
You're like, my gosh, it's desolate. Where's Vegas? And you
hit the rim him and it's like, oh my gosh,
I'm like a mosquito heading towards the Zapper. Bring me in, daddy,
you know. But now that one of the coolest sights
I can remember is going south from Vegas to la
(43:20):
and you're there in the Mohave Desert and you can see,
you can literally see the state line between Nevada and
California because the casinos go right up to the border
and it's just bright freaking lights. I mean, the night
sky is lit up, and as soon as you look
past that, it's just desolate and that's California, and it's
(43:41):
such an interesting visual dichotomy when you come up to
that area. I forget the name of the town, but
it's kind of cool to to have that visual of
gambling is legal here, it's not here. Just to hit.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
You, Yeah, no, that that sounds really cool. Yeah, I've
I've seen pictures of some of that stuff, and yeah,
I'm just like, yeah, that would be cool, you know,
to just I would be like a kid in a
candy store, just you know, out there stuff like that.
So yeah, I think just that that is appealing to
me more so than you know, I've wanted to travel
(44:19):
the full length of Route sixty six, you know, but
I'm with the way cities are sometimes it's like that's
not as much appealing to me as just the wide
openness and finding some small town or you know, not
that Vegas is small, but you know, uh, you know
what I mean, just yeah, you know, finding the me
on out in the desert I think is much more
(44:41):
appealing to me than a big city.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Like Wells, Nevada, jeez Elie, Nevada, Battle Mountain, win Omacca,
all those little towns you know, some of them. You know,
that's where a lot of the cathouses are, the prostitution is.
So you know, got those signs. But one of my
bucket of signs comes from the Armpit of America, Battle Mountain, Nevada.
(45:07):
It's the Owl. It's the Owl restaurant, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. And my buddy, is it what was that?
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Is it like the Chicken ned or something? Am I
thinking of a different sign?
Speaker 1 (45:21):
It's a different sign. This was actually called the Owl.
It's the Owl Club and the Owl Steakhouse and the
Owl whatever. But my buddy is a regional manager for
NAPA and part of his area is Battle Mountain. So
every once in a while when he goes through, you know,
Northern Nevada. Basically Northern Nevada is everything north of Las Vegas,
(45:44):
to be honest with you, but he'll go through some
of these towns and semi photos of Neon and I'm like,
I am sharing this. I'll share with you the owl.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
I just looked it up. One of my one of
my Flicker friends has one.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Cool and yeah, battle Mountain is kind of the I'm
into the middle of nowhere in Penguins, Utah. I think
Battle Mountains even more middle of nowhere in Panguige.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Okay, yeah, that's yeah, that's an awesome sign. And yeah,
that's one of the things I love about like flickers.
I can just type in a city and you know,
it shows you your friends and most of my most
of the people that I'm following or you know, into signs.
So it pulls right up and I'm like, hey, there, okay,
there it is.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
And we're coming up to the end of the podcast.
It goes by so fast and I've been going on
side roads. Think thanks for keeping me between the bar pits.
But is there anything that you like to plug besides
you're like Instagram and your Flicker. Do you have anything
else that you'd like to give a shout out for
or a plug or a website or something like that.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Well, I would say what one of the you know,
going back to when you talked about what what kind
of got me into you know, taking the signs? One
of the photographers that I started following, like in twenty eleven,
and somebody that's like really inspired me. I've never met
the guy, but Thomas Hawk, like he just has amazing photos.
If you go on to his flicker. I don't know
(47:13):
if he does Instagram or not, but on his flicker,
he just has amazing signs. And you know, he's kind
of like we talked about, I have twenty seven thousand photos. Like,
you know, I think I was kind of inspired to
a degree because I think he's like trying to get
to a million photos before he died. So yeah, he's
(47:33):
got way more than me, and he's like traveling everywhere
and taking photos. And I would say, yeah, if you're
ever on Flicker, look up Thomas Hawk because he's just amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Now how does he spell his name.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Thh oh m as Hawk?
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Okay, oh there is I'm sorry, go ahead, No, I
was saying it is right in front of me. So yeah,
I went to hear the people you follow in. I
went there, and of course the first thing is somebody
dressed up in a green alien suit. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, he does the signs, but he takes pictures of
just crazy stuff. He's taken a lot of pictures of
Fort Worth. He's got one of some guy that has
a dog with a cat on its back and then
maybe there's a mouse on top of the cat. I
don't know. That's Yeah, he's got some really crazy stuff,
but it's all like really cool and he does a
(48:34):
lot of vernacular photography. I guess he calls it it's
you know, found photos of you know, he finds things
from like, you know, just old photos from the fifties
and sixties and scans them, fixes him up, posts him
on a site. So yeah, that's a really interesting site,
definitely worth a follow.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Well, that'll bring us to the end of our show.
We've had danger Dave da in g g R excuse me,
d g R. Dave Dave Matthews on with us. Go
follow him on Instagram, on flicker Glad you could be
with us and until next time hit the ground. Go
out and find those signs and share them with us.
Thanks for joining us.
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