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been awhile, yeah?
and to be honest, i was resigned to kill off 'pissedoff christoff."
another blog cut short, some floating record -- suspended animation of one man's life, awash in a digital wasteland.
that's deep, huh?
but i figured, what the hell...
if anything, it's great lube for script writing.
we took a trip.
road trip to the Salton Sea -- some 20 miles north of the US/Mexican border.
another wasteland of sorts -- a misanthropic sanctuary replete with endless stretches of barren desert.
post-apocalyptic in every way.
and there's a town out there with living breathing men and women.
they call it Bombay Beach and if you drive fifteen miles down the CA-111, you'll hit Niland.
another town.
only not so..."mad max-ish."
nevertheless, take a left -- the first one you find, and you'll run into Leonard.
Mr. Night has a mountain out there.
been dubbed, "Salvation Mountain."
topographical folk art ( just check out the pix in the previous blog entry)
adjacent to Leonard's mountain is "Slab City."
abandoned Marine Corps base -- only thing left -- you guessed it, slabs.
concrete slabs.
and there's an eclectic and sometime nefarious group of squatters that bivouac in the vicinity.
got their own golf course, too.
but back to Salton Sea.
it stinks.
stinks bad.
like an aquarium gone wrong -- algae slimmed shores composed of a 342-million morsels of desiccated fish.
tilapia, to be exact.
they die off in droves.
thousands wash ashore everyday.
many dying, flopping around helpless on the shores.
and although the place is in disrepair, and the people are different, it'd be easy to mock them.
to insult them.
to belittle them.
but they're a unique breed.
rara-avis'.
people who inspire story.
who defy the norm and don't give a good goddamn what you or i think.
despite the desolation; the iraqi-like heat; the goddamn stench -- i actually dug it.
might even drop by and say hello in the future.
