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22 December 2023
LOS ANGELES
I heard it said once that if you stay in Los Angeles too long, you will inevitably go insane. I'd survived pretty darn long stretches in Clearwater, Florida with my sanity intact, so I didn't think much of it. Maybe it was because I was younger then and could do strange things, like read for three weeks straight in hyper-air-conditioned rooms without once getting bored, horny, or pissed off. Ah, how times change.
Whatever the reasons, all I know is that I arrived in L.A. at the beginning of October and hadn't left it in seven months. Sure as you're born, I began to go insane. Things were beginning to chip away at my patience. The highways, the smog, the cars, the heat, the countless grins on billboards, magazines and film posters, the bars, the values, the obnoxious importance attached to the trivial, clothes, bodies, wealth, that particularly simple-minded way of explaining life out here-- all that stuff. But it went further than just the lofty European aggravation at the city of kitsch, money and fame. It went much deeper into the crevices of irritation: my razor wouldn't shave right, the shape of my body was beginning to oppress me in strange ways, and I was convinced the neighbors hated my guts. As for my work: I could hardly write anymore unless I drank five cups of tea with twice as much sugar and had done my initial blank stare at the screen for at least 40-minutes. Then I'd crank out a few brilliant sentences and need an oxygen mask to revive myself from the exhaustion.
In short, EVERYTHING was damaging to my mental health at that point. Thank God I didn't possess any semi-automatic weapons.
SALVATION
For some reason or another I decided that the desert would cure all of my problems. I hate heat and sun, and I was never particularly passionate about sand, so I don't really know why the desert became an obsession. But I'm guessing it had something to do with the budget of someone who is technically broke.
I offered this idea up to my equally broke friend Shalon, and she agreed to come along. We agreed on a weekend, but the trip got kicked around a bit because of pre-scheduled social events. So it finally fell into the odd time slot of Sunday thru Tuesday.
PACKING
An old composition book, an old moleskin notebook, a dictionary, Voltaire's Candide, a sketchpad, two pens, eight English Breakfast tea bags, a Chinese straw hat, health food store sunscreen lotion, and CDs: The Great Women Blues Singers, Been in the Storm So Long (Spirituals), Bob Dylan (the Bootleg series), Bach, Blind Willie McTell, Leadbelly and Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. I also packed some clothes, three apples, and poppy seed pastries from a Russian bakery.
SUNDAY 2:00PM
The car gives a jolt as we drive out of downtown. The backseat is one big stew of scarves, papers, maps, books, CDs, food, and hats. We try not to look back there unless absolutely necessary. I also have a lot of things bunched around my legs, so I can't move them, like they're stuck in a bog.
It seems so unreal that we are going to the desert, that it doesn't really register. Deserts, in general, seem unreal at that moment. We talk so much that we get lost before we even get out of downtown. All I can think is, “Thank God I'm not driving,” as we weave in and out of highway lanes from the 10, to the 5, to the 110, back to the 10, and finally to the 15. Highway networks make me want to move to Arkansas. As soon as we are out of the city, we both instantaneously develop a craving for coffee house chains-- I for Starbucks, and Shalon for The Coffee Bean. We decide that whatever we see first, we’ll tackle.
3:15PM • BALDWIN
Shalon sees a Starbucks and exits. Next, we get lost and drive around for an hour in Baldwin, asking people where Starbucks is, until we finally find it and order.
"I'd like to have-- do you have English Breakfast tea? Ok, I'd like to have a big cup of English Breakfast tea with one-quarter of it steamed milk."
On our way out I realize that there's not enough milk in my tea to make it perfect. Normally, I'd just drink it and be happy. But considering that this will probably be my last black tea with steamed milk for the next three days, I run back and ask for more milk.
Shalon has a really sweet drink that's supposedly a lot better at The Coffee Bean. We discuss this for a while and end up back on the highway.
4:20PM
I need to piss like a race horse, but somehow don't have the energy to realize it. We're still talking-- I don't think we've stopped to take a breath since we left. The sun is bright gold and the landscape is beginning to look vast and deserty-- although not abandoned yet. There are obnoxious clusters of newly built residential areas all over the place; middle-class houses that look like they are all clones of an uninspired architect's science project. Each of these places seems to be armed with the standard fast-food chain kit: Denny's, Jack in the Box, Burger King, McDonald’s and In-n-Out’s. Neither of us is hungry, yet we eye the In-n-Out’s apprehensively, in fear that we will pass the last one and suddenly be stranded in the middle of nowhere amongst the cactuses with nothing but a painful craving for In-n-Out burgers. Eventually we stop at one and I run in to ask whether there will be another In-n-Out before the end of civilization. I have trouble finding the right wording: "Do you know where the next-- or how many more of your-- of In-n-Out’s-- there are in the direction of the desert? I mean, if there are more In-n-Out’s somewhere before the desert,...” The guy finds it too strenuous to listen to me and just hands me a little booklet that tells us where all the In-n-Out’s across California are. Yay. It becomes our new bible and gets a special, honorary place behind the now empty cup from Starbucks. I have to say that I'm not too proud of my addiction to the developed west.
Shalon sees a handsome soldier and tries to take his picture. She says that whenever she takes a trip somewhere and sees a cute guy, she has to take his picture.
5:10PM
We stop at a gas station to relieve ourselves (and I get more tea). Shalon takes pictures of an old restaurant and I spot a plastic bag that thinks it's a tumbleweed. The sun is now more ripe and I'm thoroughly happy as we drive further east towards the desert. More and more civilization falls away.
5:16PM • HESPERIA "City of Progress"
We think that's sorta funny. We also pass a whole lot of hand-painted "Jesus Heals" signs.
BARSTOW
We're in the desert now-- more or less-- and drive into a town that consists only of huge outlet stores, where I buy a black skirt and dress for $32. The skirt is about three sizes too big and hangs half-way down my ass. But I like that it's loose around my legs and hence buy it, thinking I'll tie it with in place with a scarf. (I have a history of buying clothes that would be loose on a pregnant woman.)
After that, we finally eat at In-n-Out. There is a Las Vegas high school sports team there-- they're all dressed in purple and fill up half the room. The rest of the people are overweight in unattractive ways and on their way to or from Nevada. I'm stuffed by the time we leave. Shalon is still driving. We continue on toward Death Valley.
8:20PM • BAKER
We stop in Baker because we seem to be incapable of driving through a town without getting out. I think if you're driving through the desert, you'll stop at every stoppable place. Maybe not. Maybe it's just us.
We drive by the Royal Hawaiian Motel-- it's dark now and the neon lights spill into the night. Shalon sets up her tripod, and I watch her take pictures, wondering why a motel in the desert is called the "Hawaiian" motel.
Baker ends (it has hardly begun) and we turn off Interstate 15, onto a small desert highway. It was at this point precisely that we really left civilization behind. Everything we would see from then on would be unreal in its empty, vast, cowboy-film way. The last sign of humanity is a strange box that looks like a trailer with a bunch of washing machines inside it. It seems to act as a laundromat for the three trailers across the street. There are a few Mexican ladies doing laundry in its bright, neon interior. Shalon sets her tripod up again. My thoughts have moved on in the meantime. As I stand beside her, I remember a phrase I read on the Death Valley map: "During your visit here you may be lucky enough to see tarantula in the high desert."
I start thinking of snakes and want to get back in the car.
I DRIVE
I take over the wheel for the first time and drive through the pitch black desert for an eternity. We hallucinate mountain ranges in front of us on a regular basis ("Is there a mountain range right in front of us?"), listen to Bessie Smith, and talk.
I have a hard time looking straight ahead at the road. I always wanna look at things I pass-- something will catch my attention and I won't be able pass by without looking at it. What makes it worse is that EVERYTHING catches my attention. Either that or I'll look for things in the car. I need one of those things that race horses wear to keep their eyes on the track. I did well on that winding road, except that I found myself way over the speed limit a few times, or swerving because I had to look at a star formation. I blinded a couple of cars at first, because I couldn't figure out how to use the beams.
"How do I change these stupid lights?"
"You just pull that thing in."
"It's not working!"
"Yes it does-- just pull it IN, not down or up."
"I am-- it's not working!"
Shalon reaches over and shows me. From then on I feel special because I know how to work the lights properly.
10:01PM • SHOSHONE
We pass a strange little building that looks like a Freemason lodge, and shortly afterward drive into Shoshone. It's unbelievable how tiny this place is. I live in Ireland and thought I knew what a small village was, but this place is ridiculously small. It makes Kilsheelan (our village in Ireland) seem like a bustling metropolis. Shoshone is out in the middle of the desert with a few houses lining the highway-- a gas station, an inn, a restaurant, a bar, and two or three trailers somewhere off to the side. Who lives here?
We spend the night there since it'll be the last stop before Death Valley. The elderly man behind the counter at the Shoshone Inn is adorable. As soon as we get to our room, Shalon's craving for beer gets out of hand. But the bar across the street is closed, and the next town with a bar is Pahrump, Nevada, which is roughly a 30-minute drive. (Pahrump? What sort of a name is that anyway? I'm thrilled and note it down-- I'm addicted to weird names.) We think about driving to Pahrump for a beer and are both hesitant.
Before we know it, we are back in the car, on our way to Nevada. However, soon Shalon gets a "weird feeling" and we turn back. I'm also kinda tired at this point and only want to lie in bed and watch bad TV.
CLICK HERE TO READ PART TWO OF WEIRD OLD AMERICA.
I heard it said once that if you stay in Los Angeles too long, you will inevitably go insane. I'd survived pretty darn long stretches in Clearwater, Florida with my sanity intact, so I didn't think much of it. Maybe it was because I was younger then and could do strange things, like read for three weeks straight in hyper-air-conditioned rooms without once getting bored, horny, or pissed off. Ah, how times change.
Whatever the reasons, all I know is that I arrived in L.A. at the beginning of October and hadn't left it in seven months. Sure as you're born, I began to go insane. Things were beginning to chip away at my patience. The highways, the smog, the cars, the heat, the countless grins on billboards, magazines and film posters, the bars, the values, the obnoxious importance attached to the trivial, clothes, bodies, wealth, that particularly simple-minded way of explaining life out here-- all that stuff. But it went further than just the lofty European aggravation at the city of kitsch, money and fame. It went much deeper into the crevices of irritation: my razor wouldn't shave right, the shape of my body was beginning to oppress me in strange ways, and I was convinced the neighbors hated my guts. As for my work: I could hardly write anymore unless I drank five cups of tea with twice as much sugar and had done my initial blank stare at the screen for at least 40-minutes. Then I'd crank out a few brilliant sentences and need an oxygen mask to revive myself from the exhaustion.
In short, EVERYTHING was damaging to my mental health at that point. Thank God I didn't possess any semi-automatic weapons.
SALVATION
For some reason or another I decided that the desert would cure all of my problems. I hate heat and sun, and I was never particularly passionate about sand, so I don't really know why the desert became an obsession. But I'm guessing it had something to do with the budget of someone who is technically broke.
I offered this idea up to my equally broke friend Shalon, and she agreed to come along. We agreed on a weekend, but the trip got kicked around a bit because of pre-scheduled social events. So it finally fell into the odd time slot of Sunday thru Tuesday.
PACKING
An old composition book, an old moleskin notebook, a dictionary, Voltaire's Candide, a sketchpad, two pens, eight English Breakfast tea bags, a Chinese straw hat, health food store sunscreen lotion, and CDs: The Great Women Blues Singers, Been in the Storm So Long (Spirituals), Bob Dylan (the Bootleg series), Bach, Blind Willie McTell, Leadbelly and Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. I also packed some clothes, three apples, and poppy seed pastries from a Russian bakery.
SUNDAY 2:00PM
The car gives a jolt as we drive out of downtown. The backseat is one big stew of scarves, papers, maps, books, CDs, food, and hats. We try not to look back there unless absolutely necessary. I also have a lot of things bunched around my legs, so I can't move them, like they're stuck in a bog.
It seems so unreal that we are going to the desert, that it doesn't really register. Deserts, in general, seem unreal at that moment. We talk so much that we get lost before we even get out of downtown. All I can think is, “Thank God I'm not driving,” as we weave in and out of highway lanes from the 10, to the 5, to the 110, back to the 10, and finally to the 15. Highway networks make me want to move to Arkansas. As soon as we are out of the city, we both instantaneously develop a craving for coffee house chains-- I for Starbucks, and Shalon for The Coffee Bean. We decide that whatever we see first, we’ll tackle.
3:15PM • BALDWIN
Shalon sees a Starbucks and exits. Next, we get lost and drive around for an hour in Baldwin, asking people where Starbucks is, until we finally find it and order.
"I'd like to have-- do you have English Breakfast tea? Ok, I'd like to have a big cup of English Breakfast tea with one-quarter of it steamed milk."
On our way out I realize that there's not enough milk in my tea to make it perfect. Normally, I'd just drink it and be happy. But considering that this will probably be my last black tea with steamed milk for the next three days, I run back and ask for more milk.
Shalon has a really sweet drink that's supposedly a lot better at The Coffee Bean. We discuss this for a while and end up back on the highway.
4:20PM
I need to piss like a race horse, but somehow don't have the energy to realize it. We're still talking-- I don't think we've stopped to take a breath since we left. The sun is bright gold and the landscape is beginning to look vast and deserty-- although not abandoned yet. There are obnoxious clusters of newly built residential areas all over the place; middle-class houses that look like they are all clones of an uninspired architect's science project. Each of these places seems to be armed with the standard fast-food chain kit: Denny's, Jack in the Box, Burger King, McDonald’s and In-n-Out’s. Neither of us is hungry, yet we eye the In-n-Out’s apprehensively, in fear that we will pass the last one and suddenly be stranded in the middle of nowhere amongst the cactuses with nothing but a painful craving for In-n-Out burgers. Eventually we stop at one and I run in to ask whether there will be another In-n-Out before the end of civilization. I have trouble finding the right wording: "Do you know where the next-- or how many more of your-- of In-n-Out’s-- there are in the direction of the desert? I mean, if there are more In-n-Out’s somewhere before the desert,...” The guy finds it too strenuous to listen to me and just hands me a little booklet that tells us where all the In-n-Out’s across California are. Yay. It becomes our new bible and gets a special, honorary place behind the now empty cup from Starbucks. I have to say that I'm not too proud of my addiction to the developed west.
Shalon sees a handsome soldier and tries to take his picture. She says that whenever she takes a trip somewhere and sees a cute guy, she has to take his picture.
5:10PM
We stop at a gas station to relieve ourselves (and I get more tea). Shalon takes pictures of an old restaurant and I spot a plastic bag that thinks it's a tumbleweed. The sun is now more ripe and I'm thoroughly happy as we drive further east towards the desert. More and more civilization falls away.
5:16PM • HESPERIA "City of Progress"
We think that's sorta funny. We also pass a whole lot of hand-painted "Jesus Heals" signs.
BARSTOW
We're in the desert now-- more or less-- and drive into a town that consists only of huge outlet stores, where I buy a black skirt and dress for $32. The skirt is about three sizes too big and hangs half-way down my ass. But I like that it's loose around my legs and hence buy it, thinking I'll tie it with in place with a scarf. (I have a history of buying clothes that would be loose on a pregnant woman.)
After that, we finally eat at In-n-Out. There is a Las Vegas high school sports team there-- they're all dressed in purple and fill up half the room. The rest of the people are overweight in unattractive ways and on their way to or from Nevada. I'm stuffed by the time we leave. Shalon is still driving. We continue on toward Death Valley.
8:20PM • BAKER
We stop in Baker because we seem to be incapable of driving through a town without getting out. I think if you're driving through the desert, you'll stop at every stoppable place. Maybe not. Maybe it's just us.
We drive by the Royal Hawaiian Motel-- it's dark now and the neon lights spill into the night. Shalon sets up her tripod, and I watch her take pictures, wondering why a motel in the desert is called the "Hawaiian" motel.
Baker ends (it has hardly begun) and we turn off Interstate 15, onto a small desert highway. It was at this point precisely that we really left civilization behind. Everything we would see from then on would be unreal in its empty, vast, cowboy-film way. The last sign of humanity is a strange box that looks like a trailer with a bunch of washing machines inside it. It seems to act as a laundromat for the three trailers across the street. There are a few Mexican ladies doing laundry in its bright, neon interior. Shalon sets her tripod up again. My thoughts have moved on in the meantime. As I stand beside her, I remember a phrase I read on the Death Valley map: "During your visit here you may be lucky enough to see tarantula in the high desert."
I start thinking of snakes and want to get back in the car.
I DRIVE
I take over the wheel for the first time and drive through the pitch black desert for an eternity. We hallucinate mountain ranges in front of us on a regular basis ("Is there a mountain range right in front of us?"), listen to Bessie Smith, and talk.
I have a hard time looking straight ahead at the road. I always wanna look at things I pass-- something will catch my attention and I won't be able pass by without looking at it. What makes it worse is that EVERYTHING catches my attention. Either that or I'll look for things in the car. I need one of those things that race horses wear to keep their eyes on the track. I did well on that winding road, except that I found myself way over the speed limit a few times, or swerving because I had to look at a star formation. I blinded a couple of cars at first, because I couldn't figure out how to use the beams.
"How do I change these stupid lights?"
"You just pull that thing in."
"It's not working!"
"Yes it does-- just pull it IN, not down or up."
"I am-- it's not working!"
Shalon reaches over and shows me. From then on I feel special because I know how to work the lights properly.
10:01PM • SHOSHONE
We pass a strange little building that looks like a Freemason lodge, and shortly afterward drive into Shoshone. It's unbelievable how tiny this place is. I live in Ireland and thought I knew what a small village was, but this place is ridiculously small. It makes Kilsheelan (our village in Ireland) seem like a bustling metropolis. Shoshone is out in the middle of the desert with a few houses lining the highway-- a gas station, an inn, a restaurant, a bar, and two or three trailers somewhere off to the side. Who lives here?
We spend the night there since it'll be the last stop before Death Valley. The elderly man behind the counter at the Shoshone Inn is adorable. As soon as we get to our room, Shalon's craving for beer gets out of hand. But the bar across the street is closed, and the next town with a bar is Pahrump, Nevada, which is roughly a 30-minute drive. (Pahrump? What sort of a name is that anyway? I'm thrilled and note it down-- I'm addicted to weird names.) We think about driving to Pahrump for a beer and are both hesitant.
Before we know it, we are back in the car, on our way to Nevada. However, soon Shalon gets a "weird feeling" and we turn back. I'm also kinda tired at this point and only want to lie in bed and watch bad TV.
CLICK HERE TO READ PART TWO OF WEIRD OLD AMERICA.
artid
755
Old Image
4_10_rearview.swf
issue
vol 4 - issue 10 (jun 2002)
section
pen_think