High Lonesome

On the surface, it seems like a desolate stretch of high desert running from the clear blue pools of Palm Springs to the glitz and glamor of Las Vegas.  Yet scratch away at the barrel cactus and Joshua trees and you’ll discover another world teaming with creativity, adventure, and new age thinking.

It’s a world of vast nothingness peppered with the sad remnants of past lives and Male exuberance.  It’s a place where stillness thunders louder than the wind and God did some of his finest paintings. It’s a place begging to be discovered for what beneath its surface.

The high desert of the Morongo Basin is like a modern day outback of more than 9.5 million acres of public land in the California desert. Its home to old walking trails first used by Native Americans between seasonal encampments then followed by Spanish explorers and finally 19^th century gold seekers and pioneers.

Reminders of past human lives are everywhere. Abandoned mines litter the area with their relics of past hopes and dreams scattered about the ground. A restored railroad depot stands alone with its tracks still leading nowhere. Ramshackle old cabins planted amid miles of sage and scrub brush, sit isolated and lonely in the desert. The evidence is all here if you can look past the dust and dirt and castles made of boulders to imagine all the past lives that once past through this place on the way to a better life.

Now a new take on ‘high desert life’ has been created by multiple generations and reshaped by such stalwarts of innovation as the Hi-Desert Cultural Center, Joshua Tree National Park and its surrounding communities. Once remote towns such as Yucca Valley, Morongo Valley, Twenty-Nine Palms, and Joshua tree have become meccas for artistic individuals seeking remoteness and solitude in the high desert.  The Los Angeles Times and New York Times recently called Joshua tree the ‘new Bohemia’ and ‘Mecca’ for the arts.

The area is a mecca for aging rock stars, artists, and modern-day bohemians along with ordinary people all in search of a new beginning…or a place to get lost and forgotten.

Down in the Coachella Valley, the Desert Riders pioneered this fascination with rugged western individualism and a recreation of the western lifestyle while taking it to a whole new comfort level…and that was back in 1931.

Back then equestrian life had evolved into a recreational experience and a way to enjoy the warmth and eternal sunlight of Palm Springs. Mounted excursions into the surrounding mountains began to grow in popularity. Soon the group added the maintenance and building of trails to their long list of club accomplishments. Many of these trails meandered high up into the mountains and gave riders a spectacular view of the desert below. They were a precursor to the many modern day desert rats who maintain the trails to this day.

Pioneer town, founded fifty years ago, is a throwback and perfect backdrop for early television westerns and grade B movies. Gene Autry led an assorted group of Hollywood wranglers to recreate a true replica of an old western town just three hours from Hollywood and Vine. Now days just up the road, young boys learn the art of war amid 935 square miles of rock and dirt.  Between Pioneer town and Twenty-Nine Palms (the Marine Corp Air Ground Combat Center) lie all the ingredients for growing up very quickly.

The area gained notoriety and unwanted press when rock and roll stars of the 60s and 70s would travel there from Los Angeles to party, do drugs, drink, and carry-on.  The most notorious of these acid adventurers was Gram Parsons who died from an overdose in a hotel room in Joshua tree.  Later his body was stolen from the funeral home and taken back to Joshua Tree for an informal funeral pyre by his rock star buddies.  His remains were never found.

We discovered Joshua Tree years ago when we first started coming to the desert.  It’s changed a lot since then. There is a desert symphony orchestra and the High Desert Cultural Center which puts on plays, art showings and other cultural events. The mission of the Hi-Desert Cultural Center ‘is to operate a cultural center that provides venues, support facilities, funding, promo-tion, leadership, organization, innovation, education, and other resources for programs and productions whose focus is on the aesthetic arts.’ They seem to be very successful in doing just that.

Desert & Denim Renegade Tradeshow VIDEO

The latest attempt to capture the magic of the high desert is a non-commercial branding campaign called Desert and Denim (DaD).  'Desert and Denim' and Juniper Ridge are two branding entities trying to put a face on this relatively new desert phenomenon.

DaD is a two-day event held in February when lifestyle and fashion companies from around the world converge in Joshua Tree to have an open dialogue to talk about their craft and what it means to be a maker.  The creators of DaD say ‘the focus of Desert and Denim is the process of a creative mind.’  Buy fewer and better is their rallying cry.

Cresting one of the innumerable ridgelines that criss-cross Joshua Tree National Park I can feel the high lonesome cry of some unknown bird coasting in heat thermals above my head.  Wind brushes my face and silence mutes even my breathing. I’m alone with my thoughts and the vast desert spread out below me.

Welcome to paradise.

Palm Springs: Wet and Wild

Palm Springs can be a comfortable contradiction of terms.  On one hand it’s cultured and refined. In the other palm it can be wild and crazy. Staid old traditions often collide against hot trends germinating from both coasts. It’s a confluence of the old and new, reserved and uninhibited, legacy verses façade. Yet there seems to be something for everyone who comes out here looking for a venue outside of the norm.

Palm Springs is wet.  The Dinah, the White Party, Splash weekends, Coachella and Stagecoach are just a few of the fun-inspired events and festivals.  They can be edgy, outrageous and even scandalous. And those are just some of the tamer ways to describe how some people behave once they get here.

The legendary Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend turned twenty-five this year.  From a small one-night event with 1,500 participants twenty-five years ago to now five days of epic pool parties and world-class entertainment, the Dinah has evolved into one of Palm Springs largest tourism boosters. This year the Dinah attracted over 15,000 attendees and cemented its status as the largest lesbian event of its kind in the world.

The White Party has done the same thing for gay men from around the country.

Coachella is a cultural rock and roll happening in its own rite.  Since its humble beginnings in 1999 as a two-day indie rock festival, Coachella has established itself as one of the largest two-weekend celebrations in the country. In 2015, it attracted well over 500,000 attendees and continued to draw some of rock, hip-hop, and electronic dance music’s biggest names.

Stagecoach is a simpler, more traditional roundup celebrating country, bluegrass, and folk music and culture.  The polo field grounds are dotted with bales of hay, stagecoaches, and mechanical bulls. Since its launch in 2007, the festival has grown exponentially and offers comfortable options including a recreational vehicle camping resort for a fancier experience.

Local hotels add to the flavor with their own hedonistic menu of pool-parties, lounge entertain-ment acts, splash events, and all-night carousing.  Most hotels have their own venue of live music party bashes. Local shops feature Coachella and Stagecoach fashions from hipster cool to Wild West to boho queen to cozy country and desert chic.

Yet even in that crazy colliding quilt of fashion and fun both generations love to cross over occasionally.  For the more mature among us, it can be wild and wet if the climb is hard and honest sweat counts for anything.

For those seeking some respite from city living greater Palm Springs offers up a plateful of scenic escapes by the hour or by the day. Visitors can find quiet and sanctuary on mountain paths, red-walled canyons and the relaxing solitude of the high desert. There’s a plethora of hiking, biking, swimming, mountain climbing, trail running and that’s just in the morning hours.

 

Palm, Murray and Andreas make up the much larger Indian Canyons just south of downtown. Lake Cahuilla Recreation Area features over 710 acres with fishing, camping, hiking, and horseback trails.

Whitewater Preserve is a vital wildlife corridor between the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains and is home to several species of endangered birds and a robust population of deer, bears, and bighorn sheep.

Joshua Tree National Park boasts over 790,000 acres of divergent topography and rapidly changing landscapes.  Two deserts merge among a seemingly-endless swath of boulders to form the national park. The Colorado Desert occupies the eastern half of the part and the higher, slightly cooler Mojave Desert makes up the western half.  Year-round activities include hiking, biking, rock climbing, camping, and stargazing.

Aside from its majestic physical surroundings, Palm Springs can be anything you want it to be.  It’s a state of mind in a land of temptations. For some, ‘hooking up’ means a solid crampon lodged in granite. To others it means something entirely different. A ‘one night stand’ means overnight lodging to one person. An experiment in mutual satisfaction to another.

Welcome to wild and wacky world of the new Palm Springs.  Part fable, part legend, part public relations and media snowstorm and part reality. For most it is a reflection of what they think this place should be…at least in their own minds. For others it is a culmination of self-induced parity of what everyone else their age is doing, acting, and pretending.

Leaving Palm Springs

Whether you chose to be part of the circus or not, it can be a curious and ever mind-expanding place to be…or be from.

Skin in the Game

Saguaro Pool

There are hipsters in town for the weekend.  There are metal heads and groupies flocking to the high desert and soon more will be here for Coachella. There will be pretend cowgirls and cow-boys here for Stagecoach after that. Movie devotes flock here in January for the International Palm Springs Film Festival and Modernism junkies love traipsing through other people’s mid-century modern homes in February.

Then, of course, there is the standard gathering of snowbirds, weekly tourists escaping winter back home, weekend voyeurs in town to play out their Palm Springs weekend replete with the girls and booze under a warm winter sun.

They’ve all come here during the winter months to forget about their own reality back home.  The desert scape and sunlight and warmth can do that to a person. I’d like to think I’m different and don’t fall into any of those categories. In fact, I’m just foolish enough to believe that I can traverse all those worlds and end up in one of my own creation.

I’m getting more involved in Palm Springs life to the point where I’m starting to feel real ‘ownership’ in this place.  It’s not than just our growing cache of friends and associates from various organizations. It’s more than our neighbors down the block and across town. It’s more than Sharon’s swim club and my various writing groups. It’s even more than the occasional coffee rendezvous for salon-type mental meanderings or slumming around the rough edges of town. It’s really a solo journey into the heart of what makes this city tick and rumble and roar.

Map of Palm Springs Neighborhoods

I’m trying to listen to the heartbeat of the city and absorb its organic growth.  I want to push past its façade even if it means sliding across its underbelly. I don’t need a ‘ride-along’ to know where not to wander at night. I don’t need the Department of Tourism to help me find my way around town.  I’m trying to get a handle on some of the more influential folks in town. It’s these influencers who often times steer the trends and happenings behind the scenes. They are rich fodder for my wild imagination and solid material from which to draw for my cast of characters for ‘Debris; the trilogy.’

Palm Springs Writers' Guild Desert Writers' Expo

It’s not just with the Palm Springs Writers Guild but also city politics (although I’ll admit that is more on a cursory level through a friend of ours.)  I want to know and understand who the power brokers are, the wheelers and dealers, the visionaries, the dreamers and the doers.

But it also means getting under the skin of the city.  Getting beyond the imagery to help me better understand why things happen here and not elsewhere It’s a matter of getting to the soul of what makes this place work.

It will entail understanding downtown redevelopment to satisfy my real estate cravings.  It will mean examining our small town mentality verses new development advances. It will mean frequenting the local haunts for a future Jack Kerouac or Bob Dylan…if one even exists. It will mean understanding the Hollywood game as they’re playing it today if I want to sell my screenplays.

While I may be a snowbird in disguise, I want to emulate the year-round residents in everything I do, think, and act.  Forget the tribe of tourists who settle here each winter, I want to straddle this world and my own back home while feeling an integral part of both. I’m not ready to give up the Midwest but this place puts me ‘on the road’ more than anywhere else.

Paradise in Wrinkles and Cream

The ‘season’ has begun in Palm Springs. For roughly six months out of the year, snowbirds and tourists and a plethora of visitors gather to celebrate the warm desert climate, wonderful mountain vistas and a myriad of outdoor activities. They bring with them their suntan lotion, wrinkle cream and youthful dreams of a hedonistic nature. 

The population in the Coachella Valley swells by two-thirds during ‘the season.’ Hotels start to fill up, especially on weekends and for special events. Restaurants start demanding reservations again. Last year, a couple of motels near us charged $650.00 per night for the Coachella Music Festival.

It means local theater comes back alive. The museums always have new exhibits and stimulating programs. Musical venues flourish and special events pepper each weekend.

Most of the newbees or returnees come to avoid the harsh Canadian winters or arctic blasts blowing off the frozen Midwestern tundra. Some come to play golf. Some come to sleep in. Some come to wrap themselves in a new persona. This is often the case around the holidays when your typical family arrives with kids in tow. Once off the tarmac, the grandparents have the kids and the couples begin to swing - figuratively speaking.

Caustic year-round natives call it the “Palm Springs state of mind.” It’s a throw back to that Hollywood fantasy era where the hard liquor cocktail hour began at 4:00, women were treated like second class objects, everyone smoked and most wanted to emulate a hedonistic lifestyle-if only in their minds. In reality, it was a carefully crafted facade churned out by Hollywood tabloids for the gullible masses of tourists.

Palm Springs 1945

 Middle-age men seem particularly susceptible to this affliction. You see them in the hotel bars and on the golf course, acting as if this was their new lifestyle…forget the wife and kids at home. Vegas has little on this place for creating the tempting setting for such foolish behavior.

 

The irony, of course, is that old Palm Springs died a long time ago. It began its slow agonizing slide to complacency back in the late 60’s when the wise city fathers didn’t want any more development. Their actions or inactions pushed new developments down valley to the gated communities of Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert. It continued with the city’s outdated fashion mall and desperate clinging to old ideas and fading memories of its self-imposed glorious past.

Sonny Bono stopped the slide back in the 1970s and other mayors have since sought to define and then redefine what Palm Springs is supposed to be all about. There seem to be two schools of thought here. Both parties are sincere and fervent in their zeal. 

Palm Springs 1938

Palm Springs 1948

The old guard, which consists mainly of old time residents, wants to keep Palm Springs a little village the way they imagined it was back in the 1950’s. They don’t want new development coming in and changing what they perceive to be the small town feel of Palm Springs. 

But new development elsewhere has put enormous pressure on the city fathers to find a place, a brand and an image for Palm Springs that fits today’s modern standards for urban growth.

Despite the wishes of the traditionalists (old guard), Palm Springs is going through a metamorphosis of sorts. Despite the walk of the stars down Palm Canyon Drive and some of the other fading vestiges of old Hollywood, memories of that period in Hollywood history are fast fading among the younger crowds now flocking to the valley. 

Now there is a new approach among the local progressives of blending the best of old Palm Springs with the newest development trends. These folks feel that Palm Springs must adapt with the times if the city is going to grow and prosper.

                                                            Palm Springs Measure J Website

Measure J was the catalyst for just that growth. Measure J is a dedicated local revenue measure (tax) passed by voters in November 8th of 201. Its goal is to maintain local community services and revitalize downtown Palm Springs. It increased the local sales and use tax by 1%.  For all intents and purposes, Measure J seems to be justifying all of its hype. It has pumped new monies into the economy and shown clear concrete improvements around town.

And hype begets hype when it comes to building up a steady stream of favorable comments about the city and its environs. New restaurants and shops are opening. New hotels or refurbished ones are coming on line. Along with a strong post-recession rebound, there seems to be a definite movement in the right economic direction.

Interestingly enough, one of the first groups to rediscover the allure of Palm Springs were the post-hippies and bohemians of the New Age. West coast hipsters decided that Palm Springs suited their taste for art and design and open-mindedness. Having the Coachella Festival down the valley didn’t hurt the city’s image among the younger set either. Nor did the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Modernism Week, Stagecoach Music Festival, El Paseo, Indian Canyons, Sunnylands, the Aerial Tramway, over 48 sanctioned golf courses and a bazillion swimming pools.

As I mentioned in my blog Christmas Redux, these hipsters have taken a little different approach than my hippies of the sixties but their intent is still the same. 

Palm Springs is an open-minded town that pretty much lets everyone do their own thing. Even if it means acting silly on vacation and indulging in the more pleasurable things in life. But isn’t that what our short time on this earth should be about?

...Every once in a while.