An Evil Wind Blows

One of the rude jokes among residents of the Coachella Valley concerns the aroma sometimes pushing up from the South. Once again, it’s another fish die-off at the Salton Sea. Over the years, there have been enough newspaper articles about the fish kills, rank odors and morbid housing scene along its shores that no one would want to venture down there at any time.

That’s too bad because the Salton Sea is a fascinating area teaming with wild life and tired old relics of a bygone era of oceanic fun. It’s well worth a trip south from the refined communities that make up the greater Coachella Valley area. Of course, speaking like a native, in the twenty-four years we’ve been coming to Palm Springs, I hadn’t ventured down there myself for the first ten years. Ignorance was bliss and I was blissful…and wrong.

The Salton Sea is California’s largest lake measuring more than 35 miles long and 15 miles wide in spots. It has a surface area of over 380 square miles and sits at 332 feet below sea level. The sea was created back in 1905 as the result of an accidental break in a canal cut into the Colorado River. For 16 months, the river ran unchecked into the lowest area around; the salt basin which became the Salton Sea.

But it wasn’t the first time that the area had seen a large body of water. Thousands of years earlier, Cahuilla and other California Indians occupied those lands. When they first arrived, the Salton Sink held a much larger body of water – ancient Lake Cahuilla. Geologists estimate the sea has appeared and then disappeared about every 400-500 years.

After the Indians, came the first settlers and railroad men who built a line of the Southern Pacific Railroad through a part of the sea. Nearby agriculture began to grow in what is now the communities of Coachella, Thermal and Mecca.

By the mid-fifties, the Salton Sea had become a major recreational water resort area for Southern California. But two hurricanes; Kathleen in 1976 and Doreen in 1977, caused such wide-spread damage to neighboring farm lands that the runoff caused a major increase in the salinity of the sea. That, in turn, caused major fish-kills and bird-kills and created such a major issue with noxious odors that residential development came to a stop.

Today the salinity level of the sea stands at 45 ppt. Only the tilapia fish is able to survive in such waters. While fishing is still good for the tilapia, fish kills continue to plague the area with their harsh smells.

Along the northeastern edge of the Salton Sea lies one of the world’s most important winter stops for migrating birds traveling the Pacific Flyway. The migration begins in October and by January more than 400 species of migrating birds fill the skies above the sea. By the end of May, the birds have moved on.

Like any other large natural area in California, there is much more than just the sea in the Salton Sea area. Over the centuries the fragile ecosystem of the area has provided sanctuary to an extremely diverse collection of wildlife and the critical habitats that support and nurture them.

For example, the sea holds millions of fish that feed the masses of wintering birds, including herons, egrets, brown and white pelicans, and kingfishers. In the fall, birds of prey arrive. Among them are peregrine falcons, osprey, and ferruginous hawks.

The fields and wetlands adjacent to the sea support huge flocks of snow geese, ducks, sandhill cranes and California’s largest population of burrowing owls.

Plans to reclaim the sea and turn it back into a major recreational area have begun and stalled dozens of times over the years. But in 1998, Congress finally passed the Salton Sea Reclamation Act directing the Secretary of the Interior to prepare a feasibility study on restoration of the Salton Sea. Slowly but surely, progress is being made to turn the tide in that direction.

The Salton Sea and its immediate vicinity have many recreational activities to offer, including: camping, bird watching, fishing, hiking, boating; use of personal watercraft; hunting and off-roading.

It will take years, perhaps decades before the sea might possibly return to its past glory. More feasibility studies are being made, more funding is being sought and grand schemes hatched. The possibilities for commerce, recreation and development are enormous. Talk of Lithium fields suddenly discovered have a lot of politicians licking their lips. Time will tell.

Until then the Salton Sea is a magical place for walk the shoreline, observe the birds, and time your visit to avoid the smell. A small price for a wonderful watery treasure in the middle of the desert.

Summer of Strange Occurrences

Sharon broke her right arm three days before leaving Palm Springs this spring. Thus began a rather disjointed (pardon the pun) and disruptive summer for both of us back in Minnesota. Of course, her broken arm was her good arm. So, suddenly sporting a cast for more than five weeks, made her feel unbalanced and (understandably) it was difficult it for her to navigate steps and stairs. The accident also made it more difficult for her to continue her painting projects.

So began a summer of adjustments for Sharon’s new situation and a real challenge for her to continue painting as she had in the past. It also involved two trips weekly; one to Edina and another to Red Wing to deal with therapy and rehabilitation. You do what you have to do.

My Coffee and Chat sessions also went through some adjustments as a couple of folks disappeared entirely and others found more interesting ways to spend their time. The core friends that remained formed a tight bond over the summer. Over the ensuing months, we had some fabulous conversations; solving many of the world’s problems in just one sitting.

I finally got an E-bike and wanted to restart my beloved long distance Twin Cities bike rides. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a suitable e-bike carrying rack so I had to confine my rides to Apple Valley and its surrounding communities.

A sibling gathering up at Lake Vermillion proved a wonderful opportunity for Sharon and her sister and two brothers to finally find time for themselves sans kids and grandkids. A grand time was had by all.

Sharon and I managed to find time for a long weekend in Colorado. At this stage in their lives, Brian and Amy have three kids knee-deep in all kinds of school activities and sports. It was a quick taste of their crazy, hectic wonderful life raising three kids in today’s hurry-up lifestyle. Now we can just sit on the sidelines, cheering our grandkids on and enjoying their success.

A move script outline that had laid dormant for years finally rose above the rest of my other writing projects. Starting to write ‘Habitat for Humility’ proved much harder than I thought. Movie scripts differ from plays in their organic composition; demanding many more subtle nuances from both the characters and the subliminal story lines.

‘Broken Down Palace,’ My book of poetry, finally came out to great response among friends. It was a project six months in the making and I was glad to have it finally done.

My very personal play ‘Frenchy’s Eats’ took a lot longer to finish and is now in the recrafting stage.

My latest play, ‘By the Salton Sea,’ was not accepted by last year’s venue (out of 130 submissions) so I hope to present it to other venues instead.

After months of searching, I was finally able to meet up with a musician who seemed interested in helping me create a sound track of nine songs for my play ‘PTV.’ After our initial meeting, I have high hopes of collaborating with him to craft songs that fit the time, place and mood of my play. If that works out, I have more musicals to score.

Through my old illustrator, I am creating a second book in the Waleed series. This one deals with ‘being afraid’ and facing one’s fears. A friend encouraged me to do an audio version of Waleed, the Skinny Hippo. So, I hope to have audio versions of both books soon.

We’ll be returning to Palm Springs early this fall. Last year’s play ‘Widow’s Waltz’ has been nominated for six different awards by the Desert Theatre League. The awards banquet is October 1^st. It would be a real thrill to see my play win some awards.

After a summer like no other, I hope Sharon and I can get back to our respective passions of writing and art.

Ditto The Silence

A good friend of my daughter recently moved his Airbnb operation to Joshua Tree. He owns several properties and has them filled with coastal clients most of the time. It’s just the latest in what seems like a mass migration of young folks (labeled by many as rich hippies) who have discovered the mystical magic of the high desert.

These modern-day explorers of the high desert are building stunning new homes near the park. But that’s nothing new, many people have come before them. Way back in the forties, land up around the park was cheap and people were encouraged to buy acreage for building their own tiny homesteads.

The Small Tract Act of 1938 was designed to dispose of ‘useless’ federal lands by leasing up to five acres of public land to applicant citizens for recreational purposes for use as a home, cabin, camp, health, convalescent, or business site. The idea was that the applicant was supposed to make improvements to his or her claim by constructing a small dwelling within five years of the lease. Then the applicant could file for a deed from the federal government, purchasing the parcel for an appraised price at the regional land office. It gained the moniker ‘Jackrabbit homesteading.’

That trend last for only a decade or so. Gradually many of the shacks were abandoned and a lot of the land returned to the government tax rolls. In the sixties, another generation, turned on to drugs and rock & roll, found themselves lost in the darkness, staring up at a million stars. Thus, the legend of Gram Parsons, Country Folk and the mystic of Joshua Tree was born all over again.

In my most recent play, ‘By the Salton Sea,’ there are a lot of references to Joshua Tree and the attraction it has for a kaleidoscope of characters who inhabit the area. I love to get up there at least a couple of times when I’m back in season. Everything about Joshua Tree screams self-reflection and peaceful journeys to the far reaches inside your head. For all the changes the high desert has seen, some things just never change.

Far from the crystal-clear pools of Palm Springs and its emerald green golf courses lies another world. Less than an hour away, it is a world of vast nothingness peppered with the sad remnants of past lives and male exuberance. It’s still a place where stillness thunders louder than the wind and God has done some of his finest paintings.

Joshua tree and its surrounding communities embrace another form of existence; all of which is surrounded by endless horizons. The area is a mecca for today’s new age hippies, aging rock stars, artists and modern-day bohemians along with ordinary people all in search of a new beginning. It’s the place where people go to get lost and be forgotten.

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 there if you can look past the dust and dirt and castles made of boulders to imagine all the past lives that once pasted through this place on the way to a better life.

Much like the high-altitude cerebral vacuum of the San Jacinto mountains, Joshua Tree is the perfect setting for letting your mind wander and bumping into thoughts and ideas and feelings that you never knew were lurking there.

It means nestling into a large boulder, resting your head on its warm pillow of granite, looking up at the pure blue flawless sky and listening to your surroundings. The stillness will batter your eardrums with a quiet so loud that all you can do is retreat back inside your head for peace and serenity.

The high desert is a cornucopia of images, lifestyles, attitudes, ambitions, and dreams from a plethora of characters; real and imagined. It’s where you go to lose yourself and perhaps find the unexpected. It’s where the ghosts of past rock and roller stars still play their mournful ballads for no one to hear but the wind.

And it’s where writers like myself love to go and ask “what if?”

Bombay Beach Club

A fair criticism of me as a writer would be that I am ‘scattered,’ ‘unfocused,’ ‘directionless,’ and just plain ‘distracted by the world around him.’  Others might see me as a prodigious producer of a preponderance of written material in many different forms. I plead guilty to both charges and can only shrug my shoulders in admittance that I am all of those things and probably more.

So if I’m heavily weighed down by a long list of projects-in-progress, why would I even consider writing yet another play at this time? Ask anyone addicted to running, work or a plethora of other addictive habits why they do what they do. The answer is usually because ‘they have to.’ So, simply stated, I have an idea for a play that’s been burning a hole in my brain and it needs to be released.

The storyline began simply enough when several years ago my editor came to California and suggested we take a ride down to the far eastern end of the Valley to a place called Slab City. Of course, to get there we first had to pass by a dead sea and a place called Salvation Mountain. It gets even weirder from there.

This was the first time that Sharon and I encountered the underbelly of the Coachella Valley. These are the parts of the Valley that most tourists, visitors, and locals-alike never see or care to visit. You won’t find them listed in ‘points of interest’ or top tourist destinations…and for good reason.

This is where the ‘under-served’, ‘don’t want to be found’, ‘unaccounted for’, and ‘those on the lam’ come to hide. It also presents a warm, inviting cocoon for artists, bohemians, addicts, and the like to congregate and flourish.

Our trip began safely enough with a return to the Salton Sea. That briny morass of faded dreams, high hopes for the future and dead fish scales underfoot. The Salton Sea is California’s largest lake measuring more than 35 miles long and 15 miles wide in spots. It has a surface area of over 380 square miles and sits at 332 feet below sea level. The sea was created back in 1905 as the result of an accidental break in a canal cut into the Colorado River. For 16 months, the river ran unchecked into the lowest area around; the salt basin which became the Salton Sea.

By the mid-fifties, the Salton Sea had become a major recreational water resort area for Southern California. But two hurricanes; Kathleen in 1976 and Doreen in 1977, caused such wide-spread damage to neighboring farm lands that the runoff caused a major increase in the salinity of the sea. That, in turn, caused major fish-kills and bird-kills and created such a major issue with noxious odors that residential development came to a stop.

It will take years, perhaps decades, before the sea might possibly return to its past glory. More feasibility studies will be made, more funding sought and grand schemes hatched. The possibilities for commerce, recreation and development are enormous.

Salvation Mountain is one of the premiere examples of folk art in the middle of nowhere America. The site has become a mecca for those influenced by and intrigued with this kaleidoscope of painted hills, crude cave dwellings and religious scripture. The cave’s paint can and hay bale construction would challenge even the most daring of spelunkers.

The artwork is made from adobe, straw, and thousands of gallons of lead-free paint. It was created by the late Leonard Knight (1931-2014). A deeply religious man, Knight created an art piece that encompasses numerous murals and areas painted with Christian sayings and Bible verses. Knight’s philosophy was built around the ‘Sinners Prayer.’

The old mountain carver is gone now and replaced by Jesus People and their small hugging kids. Many visitors bring paint to donate to the project and a group of volunteers has been working to protect and maintain the site.

Slab City, otherwise known as ‘The Slabs,’ is a snowbird campsite used by recreational vehicle owners alongside squatters from across North America. It takes its name from the concrete slabs that remain from an abandoned World War II Marine barracks of Camp Dunlap.

It’s estimated that there are about one hundred fifty permanent residents (squatters) who live in the slabs year-round. Some survive on government checks, others just want to live ‘off the grid’ and a few come to stretch out their retirement income. The camp has no electricity, no running water, no sewers or toilets and no trash pickup service. Sounds like a dry run for the apocalypse.

Despite the free shoe tree on the way into town and the free library, most of the residents have sectioned off their trailers, tents and sleeping bags with tires, pallets, or barbwire. Free is free unless it comes to their piece of the desert then even squatters want their personal space recognized…along with their art.

No trip to Slab City would be complete with a swing by East Jesus. East Jesus has been describe-ed as an experimental, sustainable art installation. It’s is a colloquialism for the middle of nowhere beyond the edge of services. Made from discarded material that has been reused, recycled or repurposed, East Jesus encourages visitors to imagine a world without waste in which every action is an opportunity for self-expression.

I think West Satan is a simply a suburb of East Jesus. I found this second art gallery-in-the-sun fascinating and mind-expanding. It was like tripping out without the acid and a glimpse into the lives of those who don’t want to be a part of ‘any scene’ here in fantasy land or the rest of the world. All of which leads me to the reason for writing my next play which is entitled: Bombay Beach Club.

I’ve always been intrigued by a sun-bleached tattered cluster of trailer homes strewn alongside the Salton Sea half way to Slab City. Its name, ‘Bombay Beach, North Shore,’ always seemed like the perfect title for a play. I had to swing by just to satisfy my curiosity.

With apologies to Slab City, Bombay Beach isn’t much of an alternative. Its housing seems beaten down by the harsh summers and its distance from civilization. We drove down its main street and intended to stop to ask directions until we looked into the dead-eyes of one young woman shuffling down the gravel roadway. One stare was enough for us to gun the engine and ‘get out of Dodge.’

That was all it took for my pea-brain to begin churning out images and scenes and even some dialogue. It was one fleeting snapshot of an odd-ball collection of characters gathered someplace nearby. That momentary image burned a strong impression on my creative stance and has been there ever since.

Now, years later, that vapid fleeting image has crystalized into a storyline (in the form of a new play). ‘Bombay Beach Club’ is now edging out other projects to garner more of my attention. Its gestation period is almost over and ready for birth into my next play. The tag line is simple enough: ‘Bombay Beach Club; a coffee house for crazies…or is it.’