(male announcer) Production costs for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations have been paid for in part by: Generous supporters of Kansas City Public Television.

And by: Thank you.

(man) ♪ Welcome to a show about things you can see ♪ ♪ without going far, and a lot of them are free.

♪ ♪ If you thought there was nothing ♪ ♪ in the old heartland, ♪ ♪ you ought to hit the blacktop ♪ ♪ with these fools in a van.

♪ ♪ Look out, they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Randy does the steering so he won't hurl.

♪ ♪ Mike's got the map, such a man of the world.

♪ ♪ That's Don with the camera, ♪ ♪ kind of heavy on his shoulder.

♪ ♪ And that giant ball of tape, it's a world record holder.

♪ ♪ Look out, they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Look out, they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard.

♪ (Don) Dear TV Mailbag, what would Mike's mom say?

Hi, Don the camera guy here, watching parts of this capital city whiz by out the window while Randy keeps pedal to the metal in hot pursuit of one Ernest Lee, better known as Columbia's funky chicken man.

That's what it says on the side of his chicken van, which even now he's unpacking in a vacant lot a few blocks from downtown.

(Randy) Have you always done your art out in the outdoors like this?

(Ernest) No, it was just kind of something that I had to do, you know.

I met this guy up in Thompson, Georgia, back in '86, '85 named Tom Welsinon.

Said, "Ernest, you know you can do it all.

"You know, you paint this.

"You do that.

"You need to do something different, something you used to have on."

I said I used to have a van of chicken, so I told him.

And we went on, I painted some, and it took off.

They just-- and now I done sold over 7,000, right 'round Columbia alone, 7,000 of 'em.

(Randy) There's chickens.

There's a whole bunch of other stuff now too.

(Ernest) I also--I also do the landscape sceneries.

But this was in Chicago-- I went up there, up on the Sears tower.

This one is relating to the war with the Afghanistan and stuff and Iraq.

And I thought, why send the children?

Just a send a chicken or an animal.

So I got--I had fun doin' this piece.

This is when I-- I got a white van when I was right here back in 2000, when I first came to Columbia.

And I had trailers in Lee Rock City.

I was there for six years, and then I went from the carpet shop over to the spot over there where they got the-- have the State Farm at.

(Randy) Do you paint 'em out here sometimes?

(Ernest) Yeah, I paint 'em out here a lot of times.

(Randy) Is that what you do when you're not getting much business?

(Ernest) Exactly, when I'm not-- like, on a Sunday or not business on a Saturday, I come out here to-- I paint like if I was sellin'.

But I don't really be sellin'.

I just be painting 'em.

Because I love the spirit of it, so I always don't just wait on the sale.

I just work like I'm sellin' all the time.

(Randy) So what's with the "whatever?"

(Ernest) The "whatever?"

That's something I hear women say a lot.

People love chickens.

Women love chickens.

Everybody loves-- [chuckles] (Mike) Oh, sure, 'cause it's the motto for the sports team here, isn't it?

(Ernest) Well, I didn't do it because of the game, 'cause I done it because we were talking about the subject about chickens that I used to have.

But when I came here, everybody took it as a-- a game kind of thing.

(Randy) Are you the chicken man, or is it funky chicken?

(Ernest) Funky Chicken.

[laughs] (Randy) It doesn't matter.

It's whatever yo u want it to be.

Whatever they call me, I go along with.

(Randy) Well, everybody we talked to knew who you were.

Everybody said, "Oh, yeah, the guy with the chickens."

So how does it feel to be known like that?

(Ernest) It's a great feeling.

Hey, Joe, did you get a chance.

Come by.

I want you to go to KFC for me.

Okay, I'll do that.

Okay.

(Randy) He y, is he going to get some chicken for you?

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

(Don) Ernest does believe in keeping his mobile gallery mobile.

In fact, he's even got a vintage school bus waiting in the wings for an even more spacious ride, unlike us, who are pretty much stuck with the minivan, which, while we procure a few provisions, you can tour for yourself.

How's the ball ridin'?

(Don) Ball's ridin' really good.

Look at that.

How many square inches of unused space you got back here?

(Don) Yo u're lookin' at it.

Now, along with chicken, which suddenly seems to be everywhere, South Carolina's known as a place where folks have long seen strange stuff in the sky.

In fact, down in Bowman, one man's taken matters into his own hands and erected the world's only UFO visitor's center so intergalactic travelers can stop and take a load off.

(Jody) I built this to welcome them, right?

So when I saw my UFO, it crossed the road, and then it crossed the road again coming from the same direction.

I mean, it turned a U-turn just so I could see it.

So I came immediately to this one.

Turned on my flood lights, so it could land on top, and maybe that's it up there.

(Mike) Or there were two of them.

There's another possibility here.

(Jody) It's a possibility that they were in a formation trying to figure out where the third one crashed at.

(Don) That would be a 2FO.

That would be a 2FO.

That's right.

A 2F-O.

Okay, but anyway.

This right here is where I repair, I mean, I could repair the accidental crashes of other UFOs with all my supplies, extra building supplies.

And a circular cutting machine right here, you know, just in case, you know, they needed a round window where a square one used to be.

This is a special tar paper.

(Mike) It is?

Yes, sir.

You--you put this there on the ship that's damaged, and it will keep in the air and keep out the vacuum from space.

[makes sucking sound] (Mike) Does the government know you're up to this?

Come on.

Tell me the guys have been here to check this out.

(Jody) Okay, the men in black has been here twice.

The men in black, you know, the government agents.

[all together] Johnny Cash?

Come on up, and let's go up to the control room.

Okay, watch your head.

(Mike) Yeah.

Anybody needs backup power, I have backup power.

This is...backup power.

Let's see.

Refrigerator in case somebody wants a earth drink called root beer.

Root beer, this is from earth.

I usually show people an air bed that in case the aliens want to come down, good old air bed now.

Yeah, you don't have air beds in space.

They're usually a hard cement slab.

(Don) Well, there's no air.

No air, very good.

This ladder goes up to the second ship that's on top of this first one.

Well, it's like-- it's got a degraviton that I've been working on.

You know, one of them degravitons that should work and make the ship float up.

(Mike) That's some kind of, what, steering mechanism over there or...

This is actually, um-- (Don) Na utical but nice?

Okay, nautical-- nauti-- [laughs] See, this has got a certain kind of battery in it that if the aliens were within 200 yards of here, it will: [makes crackling noises] [the others make crackling noises] Yes, this is Jody.

Go ahead.

(Don) We figure it must be the maid's day off, but with all the root beer and candy around, what alien could complain?

And if Jody happens to pass along a T-shirt, so much the better.

Invasion Bowman seems to be done.

Low country, look out.

[engine rumbling] There's your coffee, son.

(Don) Check this out: a TV weasel doin' a good deed in public.

The world class coffee handoff.

(Don) Turns out charming old Charleston has lots of art and culture but not much of the outsider stuff this show seeks out.

So what's there to do but head for the waterfront and toss a few?

Historically speaking, we're just a long relay throw from where the war between the states started, though our grasp of details is tenuous at best.

(Don) So we got Fort Sumter out there, eh?

(Mike) Yep, it's right out there in the harbor.

Man, the Yankees were hard to beat even then.

Palmetto.

This is the palmetto state.

Rafael Palmetto.

(Mike) But you don't harbor any grudge.

(Don) I harbor no grudge.

Uh-oh, into the swamp.

(Randy) What is this?

(Don) That would be seaweed.

Kelp from the bull pen.

(Don) Well, as it often does, all this catch, or should I say drop, has hastened our hunger, which a tipster tells us can be cured, and colorfully at that, out on Bowens Island, unless, of course, like me, you're an herbivore.

But say "crab shack" to Mike, and you'll see Pavlov's dog in producer shoes.

I've got a bad feeling about this.

(Don) So once again, by all indications, we're about to learn the value of good research.

Ooh.

Clam people, oyster people.

I was gonna be eatin' oysters right here, where they're fresh, where they taste like mountain water running down your throat.

(Don) Some of us are taking it harder than others, but trust me, we're all taking it.

Crammed back in the van, rolling across more swamp foxy terrain, haunted still by poultry as we approach Hardeeville, where a standard stop for fuel and fluids turns out to be anything but.

Note that the attendant has double the usual number of legs.

This would be Honey, one sweet reason to get gas and M-80s at Crazy D's.

I think I just put a 20 in a setter's mouth.

(Rogers) We were just sitting on the bench outside here, and I was kind of a lazy day, and I said, "Go get his money," so she went and got this fella's money and brought it up here.

And then we trained her to do a little bit more, and it snowballed into a lot of things.

(Randy) Are you breedin' money dogs?

(Rogers) No, this is the only dog we got.

(Randy) Wow, how old is honey?

(Rogers) Seven.

(Randy) She's just seven?

(Rogers) Yeah.

(Randy) She looks well-fed.

(Rogers) She is.

(Randy) Was Honey the easiest-to-train dog known to man?

Yeah, she-- she was real easy.

She does two or three money tricks like go and get her tips, and then she knows the difference.

She knows a one from twenty.

Honey knows the difference between real money and counterfeit.

(Mike) Let's see if the-- see how smart Honey is.

Come on, now.

Honey, Honey, look, I got something for you.

[laughter] She's not takin' that.

(Randy) De nied.

(Don) How about them Sacagawea dollars?

Does she take those?

No, she won't take nothin' but American.

(Randy) We're still baffled about fireworks and gas goin' together.

(Mike) Yeah, that seems like a bad combo to us.

(Rogers) No, it's good.

We get a lot of people from all over the country here.

We have a good time with our work.

(Randy) Honey, you came back.

(Don) It's good, also, for guys who've left their pooches at home to grab up some Honey lovin' while they can.

[mournfully] Nocona!

On our way out, we noticed the fireworks folks across the way have an animal act too.

This is irrelephant.

We gawked for a moment, then resumed our southbound flow, pounded by heavy rain and the imminent promise of more.

For TV purposes, this day is done.

Tomorrow we awake in a whole new state.

[horn blaring] Look at us.

Look at us; we're cabana boys in training.

(Don) Just what the service industry needs, a pair of producers with no actual skills, though somehow they managed to get the gear stowed safely enough for a sunny drive down scenic A1A, where, on occasion, the vast Atlantic can still be seen peeking out from behind all these houses.

Then, a few miles north of historic St. Augustine, these turrets tell us we've found Castle Otttis.

That's Otttis with three Ts, a landscape sculpture built to resemble an Irish abbey and thank God in the process.

It's only open one day a week, and this isn't it.

(Mike) Di d you build that?

(Don) And besides, according to this burly guard, a wedding's in there today.

So we circled it another time or two and called it good, heading right on down the coast all the way to Cocoa, home, as you may recall, to Jeannie on that sit-com and, in real life, to Kurt Zimmerman too.

An engineer for GE, Kurt worked on a moon mission and other super secret projects that not-so-technically speaking rocked his world, so much so that he chucked the whole rocket science thing and has been making art down here ever since.

It's something that I was really obsessed and I had a compulsion to do.

So I decided it was the right time.

(Randy) Did the art you started making look like this in 1964?

(Kurt) No, no.

There's a piece over here that is from 1987, and it's more or less space-related.

There's a piece down there that I was doing, and you see the difference in colors.

These are my pictures or my imagined universes, parallel universes that are peopled with animals, in this case, but are full of life.

What we did and some of the stuff that I worked on, the radar, 2,000-mile radar, was very exciting, because there were things out there that no one knew anything about and that we observed.

And some of that carries over into my paintings today.

That's one of 'em, yeah.

(Randy) "Hyperdimension energy."

(Kurt) "Hyperdimension energy transfer to a UFO."

I also have seen UFOs down here, so it just reinforced my feelings about what I had.

(Randy) "Biomorphic."

(Kurt) Biomorphic, it is very meaningful, because I feel like I'm getting this information somewhere else.

And it's coming through me, and I'm just putting it down in my way.

(Randy) Wow.

(Kurt) Starfish in Sirius.

They claim that some of these people are the-- what do they call 'em-- progenitors of the human being, human race.

I don't know.

(Mike) That's a big word, "progenitor."

Whatever that means.

You've got to explain that to me.

[laughing] I don't know.

This is a raccoon, US1 raccoon that I just saw.

(Randy) Ki nd of skeletal there.

(Kurt) Oh, yeah.

I see animals on the road, right; they're flattened.

Okay, road kill, they call 'em.

Okay, no one recognizes-- well, maybe some people do.

I recognize that it was an entity at one time, biologically, right?

And I try to--not bring 'em back to life exactly but give 'em some kind of recognition.

I also do live dogs and unusual-- (Randy) Th ey don't ha ve to be flattened.

(Kurt) No, unusual dogs, unusual cats.

Cats, this one here was out on a hot tin roof outside my-- I have that studio, number 12.

These folks, these are people that I meet in my everyday life.

Here, this is a lady I met in the village.

This is my impression of her.

Of course, she's unreal.

This guy over here, village poet.

That's a... (Randy) Camera guy, isn't it?

(Mike) "C ocoa Village Robert."

(Kurt) That's one of the guys in Cocoa village.

(Randy) But these things just leap off the page with color.

(Kurt) Yeah.

(Randy) You weren't-- in these early works-- weren't so much leaping off the page.

(Kurt) I decided that color is the thing.

I got into it where I'm into color, a lot of color to lighten everything up.

(Don) You know, our show's in color, so this is going to work out really good.

It's in color?

Great.

(Don) If I do it right.

If I do it right.

(Don) Now, science isn't our strong suit, but we have a theory, and it goes like this: making art because your heart says you should helps keep you young.

And at age 80, Kurt should be all the proof you'd need.

We bid him fond farewell and set off for Cocoa Bay, if only for a picture postcard pose and the requisite Q&A the world's largest ball of video tape always inspires.

And, oh yeah, even though we didn't end up staying here, I'm tickled pink to say I saw it.

Basil, this one's for you.

[in British accent] I'm doing it, aww, I'm doing it now.

I mean, what's the point?

[dishes clinking and background conversation] I know I must be near Disneyland.

I grew a pimple.

[laughs] (Don) Now, despite what I might think, Disney doesn't own everything in this town.

In fact, an anti-theme park backlash has helped spawn a new crop of young, self-taught artists, chief among them, Keith "Scramble" Campbell, Carl Knickerbocker, Tony Garan, and our target du jour down here, Morgan Steele.

Morgan once called a bird sanctuary home but now resides in a much less exotic house in town.

This is one of my big influences, Jean-Michel Basquiat.

I was into him before the movie came out.

He was just a major bohemian, which is my sect.

You know, you want to call me white, Caucasian, I'm a bohemian.

I don't know where Bohemia is, but that's where I'm from.

I did this painting the other night.

This is a friend of mine named Alice.

Gonzo Java Goddess, 'cause she works at a coffee shop.

The other night, I painted dresser drawers for my friend Gigi, who is opening a restaurant in downtown Orlando.

I'm like a doctor.

I'm on call.

That's my palette right there.

That is-- That is a CD-- It's a CD thing with Pepsi bottle things.

This is about five years old.

Someday I'll put it in a frame, and I'll sell it.

That there is the Pope Thompson, who recently passed away.

Blew his head off with an elephant gun.

This little area's been a shrine to a lot of different people over the years, but you know, this is one of the heavyweights in my life, Hunter Thompson.

This is Rativa, the goddess of the freaks with six arms.

She's got a paddle ball in one hand, a saber, baby rats in a basket.

She's in a bathroom in a coffee house down on-- Austin Coffee shop on Fairbanks, right by the sinkhole, our famous sinkhole in Winter Park.

It's like my home away from home.

That's where--I paint here, but I do all my drawing there, 'cause I love the people, and I can sit down and draw.

So ask anybody who works at the place.

They're like, "Oh, he's always here."

But in their bathroom is a pink version of her.

Basically, that right there.

She inspired from Ganesh, the elephant goddess of the lepers, Hindus or something.

You know, L. Ron Hubbard started his own religion and got pretty rich and famous from it, and I'm going to play on that.

So the one thing you need is a gimmick in this world.

I love raccoons, and I love rats, and I love, like, underground nocturnal creatures and stuff.

People walk up to me, "Oh, you're the rat guy."

So it's like, if they want rats, I'll give 'em rats.

Oh, that's a painting done by rats.

That's a rat coming out of an oil drum covered in oil.

You know, Andy Warhol and his soup series?

I've got my rat series.

They don't take long to do either, you know.

Get all souped up on beer, and you got a good movie goin' on, I can do tons of those little things.

See if you can catch this.

I'm going to do it quick.

Oh [beep], he flew away.

But there are--blue jays come to that window right there, 'cause I can put seeds out.

When I first moved in here, we had a cat named Snotty Kitty.

She had a nasal problem, so we called her Snotty Kitty, and I did a tribute to her after she died, 'cause she got run over by a car.

On the day Princess Diana died, I did sort of a weird tribute to her.

That's from 1997, right there, and it's got a sword in it, like a spray painted sword.

It actually went like this.

That's my style back about the time I was getting into Basquiat.

Everything, when it's finished, I like to get it the hell out of here so that I can sell it.

And I like to have other people's art, 'cause if I look at my own art for too long, it bugs me, especially because it's sitting on the wall and it's not being sold.

I like to think it's out in a gallery somewhere getting sold.

(Don) You've got to admit, when it comes to gimmicks, a righteous rat in this Mickey Mouse town is a pretty good one.

And, yes, I too have a soft spot for Dr. Thompson, whose protection I may soon require as we head for the belly of the beast and beyond on down to Kissimmee, a sprawling sea of touristy traps and pre-fab family fun spots at every turn, though I do kinda like that orange.

Any way, we've come for Xanadu, the home of the future, a Styrofoam structure not doing so well in the present.

The sign says "for sale," but we don't see any realtors around, and sooner or later our curiosity may prevail.

(Mike) If your research was right, there are three of these, right, that were originally built, but there's only one left, and this is it.

(Don) Well, who buys it without inspecting it?

(Randy) You know, what I can picture is someday in the future Don mowing the lawn.

I could see Don mowing the lawn.

We just came over to borrow a cup of sugar.

That's our story.

Look, someone's emerged.

(Don) Being luckier than good is about to pay off once again thanks to Jason, a local boy who knows it all and doesn't mind sharin'.

(Mike) Wh at's the story here?

Xanadu, home of the future, used to be a very popular attraction.

I believe it opened in the early '80s.

I was about, maybe, seven or eight years old.

And we actually paid to come in one time, me and my mother.

And it was about five bucks a person.

And I remember there being: there's a children's area, a kid's bedroom area.

And there was a Millennium Falcon from Star Wars hanging from the ceiling, a lot of futuristic appliances.

(Don) Is this where they put those Al Gore votes?

[laughter] (Jason) After it was closed, people used it as a ticket sales for the theme parks.

They were selling discount tickets out of here for a while.

Hmm.

Probably shouldn't, should I?

Nah, probably shouldn't.

(Jason) It was really clean and really nice, but it's been closed for many, many years, and it's deteriorated over the years.

It used to be in a lot worse shape, but somebody came and cleaned it up a little bit, trying to sell the property.

From what I hear, it's about a million dollars for this property, including the Home of the Future.

[sniffs] I'm a little nostalgic at times, and I like these things here.

I grew up with these attractions in these spots, and I hate to see them in the situation they're in now.

It's very unfortunate.

(Randy) Xa nadu, wh at does that mean, Jason?

That's French for good time party house.

[wheezing laughter] (Don) Jason, you're killing me.

(Randy) Good job, Jason.

(Jason) Thanks.

Are you guys familiar with Big Bamboo Lounge across the street?

(Don) Indeed we are.

In fact, the plan has been to finish this show with a libation or two at this local legend, a watering hole where animators and Epcoters and everyday Joes have long been ending their working day.

Except, as Jason points out, it's been closed for nearly a year.

No end-of-the-day cocktail?

No end-of-the-day cocktail?

(Don) Unlike the crab shack, this really hurts.

(Randy) Big Bamboo, we hardly knew ye.

Is Dave in there?

[Don imitating Cheech] Dave's not here, man.

(Don) Big Bambú joke?

These kids today.

With apologies to Cheech and Chong, this is Don the camera guy signing off.

(female announcer) To learn more about the sights on this show and how to find them, visit us on the web at: DVDs, tapes, and a companion book to this series are available by calling 1-800-459-9733.

Oh, man, a day at the beach.

Finally, two weeks and a day at the beach.

[Randy snapping his fingers] Do nny, hey, come on.

Hey, come on; get over here.

What are you thinking?

Grab hold.

Captioning and audio description provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Captioning and audio description byCaptionMax www.captionmax.com (Don) Hey, hey, hey, hey.

If I were you, I'd be grabbin' that seat, 'cause he's about to slam into a big chicken.

(announcer) Production costs for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations have been paid for in part by: Generous supporters of Kansas City Public television.

And by: Thank you.