I so appreciate those of you who asked about my recent trip!
I flew to Palm Springs, rented a car, drove south through the city, out past the edge of the Mojave Desert, into the Sonoran Desert, near the Coachella Valley, past a town named Mecca, into the middle of what some might call nowhere, and others call home.
It’s a place on this planet with a beauty all its own.
The remains of the former resort town, Bombay Beach looked deserted, as I rolled in. The entire town is only a handful of blocks, marked A through H and then one more…with cross-streets marked First through Fifth, and that’s the whole of it—other than the beach itself, which you reach on foot, and which spreads out into the distance, covered in people engaged in strange projects, building dubious docks and slat-wood confessionals, among other things.
I drove in circles, looking at a few goats, more dogs, a chicken. A young woman wearing plastic horns flew by on a motorized unicycle. A dude in a onesie and a cowboy hat coasted on a cruiser, or cruised on a coaster, a bike with no gears, a pace meant for the sun and dust.
If you’ve spent time in a desert, you know the way a space might look empty, like a still pattern of scrub and brush, but once you walk into it, the spaces are wider and the world is more alive than it looks from a distance. This town was the same. There was nobody, until you found people.
Gina Frangello, Craig Clevenger, Tina Frank, and so many others…! Amazing people, in an incredible place.
There were three variations of festivals going on: the regional biennale—which apparently is annual, and that’s kind of a local, intentional joke, the name—and an affiliated short film festival, then the literary festival, the people who brought me in. (Thank you!)
Imagine walking wide, dusty streets, where nothing seems to be happening, except there’s a neon sign on one decrepit building, and maybe it’s a house or a garage or a bar or a club or a side-porch or a condemned…something…and when you decide to push open the rusted gate and walk in, the building is larger inside. It opens up into a space for a DJ, a cement floor, the blare of electronica competing with silence outside, without seeping into that outside world, lights flashing, a screen door half off the hinges…in the backyard, there’s a towering metal sculpture, space that opens up onto more space, everybody in variations of costumes, public and private spaces converging in a confusing way, nothing clearly inviting or exactly off-limits.
I was scheduled to read in the Temple, a shipping crate with a podium and an art show of modern day religious iconography and science. At the last minute, my group was moved to another space, with a different name, a space like a barn with a bar—because you can’t spell barn without bar, right?
We drank in the Legion Hall. I charged my phone there and at the Ski-In tavern—because they have electricity…ha!—surrounded by dollar bills and high hopes, dogs and cold beer.
“Was it worth it?” a few have asked.
“Was it worth it, to go all that way—?”
And the answer?
Of course, of course, of course!
It’s worth it, because people and places, art and ideas, are worth it.
It’s all inspiring. I count myself fortunate.
I have more to say! :)
I hope to go back.
Next year.
xo
I love this! It reminds of me of West Texas and Marfa, wide open spaces full of the very best surprises. Thanks for sharing the inspiration.
Wow. Thanks for this. It stirs a lot of emotion in me.
I grew up in Tucson, and most summers when I was a kid we would pack our unreliable vehicle (a 1959 Impala, then a 1966 Rambler Ambassador, and finally a 1972 VW Bus) and drive as a family to California. I remember when I was eight we made a detour to the Salton Sea.
Back then it still had a fair amount of water, but there were more than a few crumbling structures that had been beached by the relentless drought. There were some seriously crusty people living there in every variety of tumbledown and camper, and of course my father made friends with a few of them ("That man," said a friend of us, "can pick up friends the way a sheepdog collects burs." I have fond, if fleeting, memories of walking around the sand on the desiccated skeletons of dead marine animals, waving away clouds of flies, and squinting into the impossible vista.
I also recall the night we drove out of there being illuminated by the flashes of bombs from the Air Force's testing range.
Thanks for the memory and the great photos!