DIY

Years ago, in another time and space, it used to be that I could change the oil in my car. Touch-up work and small mechanical projects were within range of my pioneering mechanical talent. My 1959 Plymouth was the easiest project for me to tackle but even later on my Pinto easily came in second. But time and automotive advancements slowly brought an end to most of my automotive mechanics. After that, cars got a lot more complicated and harder to work on. By the mid-eighties with my two back-to-back minivans, I was out of the auto self-servicing business altogether.

Concurrently, during that period, many products in many different categories grew more complicated. For example, sewing, quilting and crochet all seemed to fade away and were replaced by inexpensive garments from Kmart, JC Penny’s, etc.

Overseas manufacturing flooded the US market with a cascading wall of items built cheaper overseas than could ever be made here back in the US. The whole cottage industry of making one’s own clothes, drinks, etc. slowly gave way to mass marketing and the demise of individual creative design.

That is, until now. As I’ve told my younger compatriots, there is an advantage to having one’s toes in the sand long enough to see history repeat itself all over again.

A classic example, of course, is the movie industry. It has always been at its core a ‘business.’ Despite the glitz and glamor of tinsel town, almost every action taken there was really focused on the bottom line. In the beginning, the studios dominated the landscape with their entrenched way of doing business. In the late 40s and 50s television became a growing threat to their iron-fist dominance. Studios responded with ‘blockbuster’ movie events and CinemaScope. But it wasn’t enough to stop the ‘little box in every living room’ from capturing market share and eyeballs.

More viewer choices grew with the introduction of VHS tapes and viewing habits gradually morphed from the downtown theaters to one’s living room. Cable quickly followed and captured an even bigger share of the market.  Gradually streaming services radically changed the playing field. Now I can watch almost anything from movies to games to news events on my iPad or Tablet, at my leisure, anytime I want to.

This movie scenario is a good analogy for how the whole idea of DIY ‘doing it yourself’ has gradually gained momentum. Certainly, YouTube videos and Pinterest are good examples of showing the way to individual creativity.

Comics and comic books were at one time the sole domain of large newspaper chains and select national magazines. Now the internet is home to hundreds, if not thousands, of comic strips and comic books written by individuals without the anchor of newspaper publishers holding them back.

Prohibition forced the major brewing companies to close. Out of that mistaken public policy grew a thriving industry of moonshiners and illegal brewing operations. The end of prohibition quickly strangled that cottage industry and the major brewers came back in force. Fast forward fifty years and we now have a thriving industry of individual brewing operations. The next logical step was the advent of ‘designer’ cocktails and specialty hard liquor drinks.

Etsy is another example of the internet as a vehicle for individual creative artists to show their wares.

As a self-published author, I am not beholden to the publishing industry anymore. In the past, if I didn’t have an agent or publisher, my only option was to go the ‘vanity’ route and find a publisher who would publish my novel for a fee and guarantee of hundreds of books that I had to have printed (and usually ended up in my garage or basement.) Vanity publishers seldom if ever did any marketing for the neophyte author.

Major publishers might conduct some kind of marketing campaign but their royalties usually hovered around 10 to 15 percent….and only after the gross expenses of the publisher had been returned. Now as a self-published author and using ‘print on demand’ I can determine how many copies of my product that I want to print at any one time. I am responsible for my own marketing campaign but I also enjoy a ROI of 70 and 85 percent royalties on my works that sell. In short, I am in control of my own publishing and marketing future. Another example of DIY at its finest.

This list goes on. If I want to conduct my workshop on ‘How to Get Started Writing’ I can do so by taping my own how-to course and put it on the YouTube Channel. If I want to start my own comic strip, I can place it on the internet. If I want to create music videos with my very talented granddaughter, I can place her songs on the YouTube Channel. It’s all there. It’s all up to me. Unshackled and unbridled, future endeavors are in my hands now. Like I said, given enough time some things eventually come around again.

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.

Return to La-La Land

It was supposed to be a mid-summer break from Midwestern reality. A return to the land of surf and traffic. Instead it became a world coated in soot and ash and a surreal exercise in ‘California Dreamin.’

It was snowing the day we arrived in Palm Springs. In fact, it had been snowing soot and ash for several days. Officials labeled the cause as the ‘mountain fire.’

At its height, there were over 3000 hotshots fighting the conflagration just over the mountains from Palm Springs. Local newscasters are all aflutter with hints of doom and gloom descending on this tony enclave of absentee owners. Admittedly, it was a little unsettling to watch the night flames moving high in the mountains above us like a surreal basket of glowing orange in a bowl of black. But realistically, it would be a stretch to say the fire was threatening our community. But, of course, there were television ratings to grow and it made for exciting, if not exaggerated, story-telling. The national news was even more distorted.

A friend wrote to ask if we were concerned about our home being consumed by the fire. I answered “not so much. We’re heading behind the Orange Curtain tomorrow.”

Now it’s 6:00 am on the main drag heading through town. We’ve left the desert and pasted through the Orange Curtain. I’m the only one up, meandering toward the main beach. There is little traffic and only a few public works folks picking up trash. This return to the ocean brings new meaning to the cliché ‘spending the night together.’ It’s a romantic return to my first sojourn to the Pacific Ocean in 1965. The beginning of a lifetime of romantic illusions of sea and surf and sin.

It’s the height of summer season along the West Coast with its art festivals, hordes of bronze bodies on surf boards and women showing more skin than they would ever dare show anyplace else on the planet. Traffic on the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) is unbelievable. It’s California at its best. A kind of cliché etched in stone by advertisers and every Midwesterners distraction from winter.

First there’s a necessary side track to Starbucks for my morning fix. The first thing I see is a well-endowed, rail thin, leggy blond hugging a tall, muscular surfer dude. They seem to be whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. Only she’s old enough to be his mother. ..but they certainly seem to be very friendly.

Welcome to Laguna Beach.

Starting in the late 20’s, with the opening of a road to Laguna Beach, this town quickly became a thriving magnet for artists, musicians and other creative types. I’m told the difference between this town and Newport Beach, its neighboring community to the north, is that they don’t all cut their hair the same down here and the people aren’t plastic. The homes in Laguna Beach certainly aren’t the ticky-tacky million dollar stucco beauties that line the ridgelines and mountain sides of Newport.

In Laguna Beach, houses range from expansive mansions on top of the mountains to shacks lining the side streets (think ‘favela’ in Portuguese) to everything in-between. Outside of the business district, few of the streets have sidewalks. The houses come in all size, shapes and colors.

It’s mid-summer so we’re past ‘May gray’ and ‘June gloom.’ Yet it’s still overcast and hazy and a typical morning on the beach before the sun burns through the haze and heats up the place.

What I encounter is the early morning beach scene before the tourists, boarders, surfers and bogie-boarders begin their assault on the ocean. The air is thick with the smell of rotting seaweed which will soon be replaced by the odor of suntan lotion, beer and kid’s drinks filling the vacuum.  Thankfully, the air is still cool before the salty breeze leaves the skin sticky to the touch.

There is a group of homeless men gathered around a stone picnic table, some wrapped in their old army blankets. I assume they’ve just crawled out from wherever they were sleeping and now it’s time to gather in the park for morning BS and a cheap cup of coffee. Not far away is a prayer group of men, probably all in recovery.

I catch a glimpse of the legendary crazy old lady who is always dressed like a court jester and encourages people to take her picture. Then when they do, she screams obscenities at them.

A young man, dressed in all black and lugging two large satchels, walks by me mumbling to himself. He looks over at me but I don’t dare return his stare. Several men go by in long pants. Only tourists wear long pants even in the winter time.

The early morning beach worshippers are all there. Zen masters practicing their beliefs in the sand, dog walkers, beach runners, a volleyball game going on, someone searching for gold with his scooper and metal detector, a couple of kayakers older than my grandpa and trash pickup truck being stalked by seagulls. Even ‘Despicable Me’ was there in the form of a blimp.

Gradually the early morning crowd gives way to the daily onslaught of tourists and regulars.

It’s the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and all those other masterful painters of the California surf scene practicing their craft. An old man’s favorite fantasy.

Further up the coast, alongside the 405, sits a wonderful palace dedicated to the arts. Paid for by a man who reveled in his moniker as an old curmudgeon. J. Paul Getty, who at one time was the world’s richest man, has left a treasure for all to see.

Welcome to the Getty, a 750-acre mountaintop property in Brentwood, West Los Angeles. All of the buildings are clad in travertine, a type of limestone, with glass and metal in definitive con-trast to the rough stone. I’m not an art aficionado by any means but there were some wonderful pieces there.

Hollywood and Vine is at the epicenter for all things illusional, dream-like and typical Hollywood.

                                               

 ‘Sister Act’ was playing at the Pantages Theater and while it wasn’t as good as the movie, the stage production was great entertainment.

Before the play, there was even time for garage-sales in West Hollywood. Old habits die hard. Even on the West Coast, one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.

Finally a return to the desert. The fires are mostly out by now. The haze is gone and returning blue skies mean intense sun and growing heat. 110 in the shade is just a start. But it’s still nice to be back in the desert. It means coffee with friends in the early morning hours before the sun begins to bake the air and slow-burn any exposed skin.

During the summer, Palm Springs is like a city of lost souls. There were two sickly old men at Starbucks sharing their respective tales of illness and multiple hospital visits. A crippled, bent-over old man who got into a Steve McQueen (bullit) Mustang fastback and tore out of the McDonalds parking lot, going who knows where? Welcome to Palm Springs in the middle of summer.

Despite the heat, it’s good to be back home. I don’t own this town yet but my comfort level here is growing with each visit.

Then it’s back to the land of green grass, green plants and plenty of flowers. Cool evenings and lakes all around. Trail running and swatting flies, mountain biking while ducking branches, finishing up “A Shau” and getting to the core of “Debris.”

My trip to the land of milk and honey was brief, pleasant and a wonderful distraction from the necessary work at hand. Yet while I thought returning to Minnesota was a return to normalcy, it really wasn’t. Granted, it was a different environment, great friends and comfortable familiarity with the tried and true.

But my heart was still back at the beach, penning my observations and fantasizing about surfer dudes and California girls. Oh, the naïve life of a romantic…

I can’t wait to get back home again.