Virginia Postrel (no visible links) has been posting about lame city slogans for Dallas-Fort Worth and other metropolitan areas. So far no mention of what the Austin Lounge Lizards say in a love song entitled "Dallas, Texas":
I'm goin' back to Dallas, Texas,
To see if anything could be worse than losing you.
This is from their best album, The Highway Cafe of the Damned (1988).
Some city and state slogans include embarrassing double entendres. I don't know whether it's true, but I was once told that the garbage trucks in Athol, Massachusetts were (perhaps still are) emblazoned "Help Keep Your Athol Clean". The commonwealth of Virginia's long-running "Virginia Is For Lovers" campaign inspired their northern neighbor to come up with "Maryland Is For Crabs". Not a bad slogan for those who love bluish crustaceans, but "crabs" is also a slang term for crab lice, aka pubic lice, which are spread through sexual contact. Maybe I have a dirty mind, but when 'crabs' are mentioned in a context which also implies 'lovers', I can't help but think of the venereal kind.
To get back to Texas cities, I was once (1981?) part of a multi-state E.P.A.-financed team measuring air pollution in the Houston area. We found plenty: in fact our SO2 meters kept pegging out at 1000 ppm. Or maybe it was the NO2 meters. All I remember now is the sight of the plotter pen banging up against the top edge of the paper grid. One of the three companies in the consortium that had won the E.P.A. contract was headquartered in Austin. In the week and a half I spent in Houston, every single one of their employees separately took me aside at some point and said: "You know, not all of Texas is like Houston. You really should visit Austin some time."
Posted by Dr. Weevil at October 24, 2002 09:21 PM"...every single one of their employees separately took me aside at some point and said: 'You know, not all of Texas is like Houston. You really should visit Austin some time.'"
I am told by people who have been to both locations, that this is actually true.
Posted by: pinax on October 25, 2002 01:06 AMThe way I see it, all that black air just makes our lungs stronger. Gives the immune systems and lungs a good work out.
Like weight-lifting.
Whitlock
Houston, TX
A local septic tank pumping company (Socorro NM) has a "honey wagon" decorated with buzzing bees and the legend "Your shit is our bread and butter."
Posted by: Steve Bodio on October 29, 2002 10:50 AMBaltimore used to have a billboard visible from I-95 as you drove through: "The City That Reads."
I always thought that was one of the dumbest slogans ever. Makes you wonder which city father thought it up, and how he managed to convince someone to pay money for a sign announcing that the citizens of Baltimore were literate. "Hey, we can read, let's put it on a Billboard!"
Athol is also mentioned in a song by John Forster, "Entering Marion." The song (available at http://www.com-www.com/JohnForster/johnforster-mp3.html) is also filled with double entendres ... it's hilarious!
Posted by: Steve Wheeler on October 30, 2002 12:51 AM