Here's looking at me, kid: Bad self-portraits from my last trip

My good friend Denise takes great pictures and has mastered the art of the arm-extended point-and-shoot self-portrait like no other. I took a stab at this genre on my last solo roadtrip through the deep south and found it took me many, many tries to get the "perfect" shot. And then I found that the shots I liked even more than the perfect ones were the truly awful, amateurish shots made on the way to the perfect ones. And so, without further ado and in the spirit of Saturday Night Live's Leonard Pinth-Garnell, I bring you...

A GALLERY OF BAD DEEP SOUTH ROADTRIP SELF-PORTRAITS

A cut-off face blocking a cut-off sign. Awful.

I didn't do too bad shooting the Alabama-Tennessee state line sign in this one, but at least I cut off my face awkwardly, as I did in these next two:

This was shot in Anniston, Alabama at the World's Biggest Office Chair which you can just barely see over my crudely shot shoulder.

Me, blurry and off-kilter, at Mammy's Cupboard, Natchez, Mississippi (and the photo's blurry and off-kilter, too).

The sign in the lower left corner says "Welcome to Louisiana" but you'd never know it in this terrible shot.

This one's so bad, I'm not sure what was supposed to be in the background.

Yep, that's my cheek and sunglasses at Oprah's home site in Koskiusko, Mississippi.

And last but not least: some roadside grass, a stop sign and half of my face. Appalling.

Elvis has left the building: Tupelo, Mississippi's birthplace of Elvis Presley

Elvis' birth home

The magnificent Nina, a docent who actually knew Elvis, fills in eager tourists on all the facts.

The Presleys' living/bedroom...

...and their kitchen.

Vernon's hat.

Elvis' childhood church...

...complete with outhouse.

Elvis was 13 when his family moved from Tupelo...

...in a car like this.

What the place looked like back in the day.

Gladys, Elvis and Vernon Presley, circa 1937-8

"Thanka. Thanka verra much."

You can't think of the great city of Memphis, Tennessee without thinking of Elvis Presley, but Memphis was actually the King of Rock and Roll's adopted hometown. He was born in the northeastern Mississippi town of Tupelo in 1935 and lived there until his family moved to Memphis when he was 13. Elvis' father Vernon built the family house in 1934, one of several two-room dwellings built very close together in a row. Work was difficult to find for Elvis' parents and the family had to move out of the house and in with Elvis' grandparents next door when he was two. After he became a star in the '50s, Elvis went back to Tupelo, bought his old house and left it with preservationists. The house sits today on the very spot it did when the family lived there, but, unfortunately, the neighboring houses have since been torn down. Inside are unoriginal but accurate time-period furnishings, placed in correct locations according to the family. The folks in Tupelo have done a great of job of turning the place into a very nicely landscaped tourist attraction. They've even moved the Assembly of God church (complete with outhouse!) that Elvis attended as a child to the property. Other features are a "Walk of Life" with granite blocks depicting important moments in Elvis' life, a fountain honoring his years in Tupelo, a statue of Elvis at age 13, a "Story Wall" featuring narratives of Tupelo residents' reflections on their encounters with Elvis, and a 1939 Plymouth similar to the model the Presleys had when they moved from Tupelo to seek better job opportunities in Memphis in 1948. There is also a newly built chapel, in accordance with Elvis' wishes for a place of meditation at his birthplace site.

There's a lot to get all shook up about at the Elvis Presley birthplace, so don't be cruel to yourself and go, cat, go!

Home Sweet O: Kosciusko, Mississippi, Oprah Winfrey's hometown

The great Oprah Winfrey

This is Oprah Winfrey Road, County Road 2207 in Kosciusko, Mississippi...

...and here's satellite proof, if you don't believe me.

Oprah's first church...

...where they're proud to let you know she first worked the room.

Her house til age six was on this empty lot. Don't know what happened to the place...

...but there seems to be an air landing field right behind it.

About 7,300 people live in Kosciusko today.

They've got a Wal-Mart. If they had a CostCo it would be the Kosciusko CostCo, and that would be funny.

There are success stories, and then there is Oprah Winfrey. From the most humblest of beginnings, she rose to become more powerful than practically anyone, and for good reason. She's a nice person who overcame poverty, abuse and hardship, worked really hard and used her success to better herself and lots and lots of other people. Born of poor teenage parents, she lived until the age of six with her grandmother Hattie Mae in the small Mississippi farm town of Kosciusko, along the Natchez Trace Parkway, about 70 miles northeast of Jackson. Her poverty was so extreme she wore dresses made of potato sacks. Hattie Mae taught her to read before the age of three and she became known as "The Preacher" at her local church because of her ability to recite Bible verses (thanks, wikipedia). The road Oprah lived on, County Road 2207, is now called Oprah Winfrey Road and markers have been put up to let everyone know about Kosciusko's most famous descendant. Her first church still stands, too, with a sign declaring "Oprah faced first audience here" and further down the road is a vacant treed lot where the Winfrey home once stood. Not much to see there now, but it gives you a sense of how far she came in her life. You go, girl.

Cruising down Mammy Lane: Mammy's Cupboard of Natchez, Mississippi

She sits with tray in hand along Highway 61.

I'm standing where some Shell gas pumps once stood.

Unfortunately, they were closed when I got there, so no inside pictures.

The famous photographer Edward Weston shot this photo of Mammy's in 1941, one year after she was built. You can see her original skin color was much darker and the Shell gas pumps that were out front. You can buy this and more great Weston photos from this website.

There are eccentric roadside attractions, and then there are "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm seeing what I'm seeing" eccentric roadside attractions. Mammy's Cupboard of Natchez, Mississippi fits squarely in the latter category...so much so that I believe from now on I'll be saying "well, sure, it was eccentric, but it was no Mammy's Cupboard." As a life-long fan of programmic archetecture, those cartoonish roadside buildings and sculptures constructed in the forms of characters, animals and household objects, I've loved visiting buildings in the shapes of giant elephants, picnic baskets and donuts. But never in my wildest eccentric fever dreams did I imagine I'd be in the presence of a 70-year old, 28-foot racial stereotype. When it was built in 1940, Mammy's was a gas station and the deep south was a lot different than it is today. Over the years, she's served as a few different businesses, and since the 90s she's been a cafe, serving southern specialties to locals and tourists. The very fact that she still stands today boggles the mind. A mammy? Really? Somewhere along the way, her original dark skin color got painted a lighter, peachier hue. Her bandana, earrings and folk art facial features have stayed the same, though, giving her the look of a giant Art Clokey-Gumby character. The place gets good reviews as an eatery (I didn't get to eat there), and many of the locals have fond memories of Mammy from their childhoods. They've got a Facebook page, and one fellow commented that Mammy's was even a polling place! And while I was knocked out by the shear, unbelievable-on-many-levels audacity of the place, I have to admit I felt queasily guilty for enjoying what could easily be considered an ethnic slur.