You know when you learn about something for the first time, like say, you learn what "ineffable" means, and then for the next week, you hear that word seven hundred times when you could've sworn you'd never heard it before you learned it? All of a sudden, people are dropping it in casual conversation and the whole entire world is ineffable. Which, come to think of it, it actually is.
It's been like that for me lately with the Salton Sea. I had a vague recollection of hearing the two words in conjunction before, but that was only because I had the first Hot Snakes album, wherein there's an epic, percussion-heavy ode about that once gorgeous resort, now festering shithole. Then, a couple days ago, I got a book called "Eccentric America" which talks about the place in all it's preposterous grandeur, even devotes one of its twenty full color pictures to a man-made, rather colorful mountain there. And then, last night, I got invited to see a movie about the very same place. By next Tuesday, I'll probably own property there.
Of course, I went. When events outside your control line up to teach you something, you'd better pay attention. Plus, the movie was narrated by John Waters and, it's always been a personal philosophy of mine that you give full attention to anyone who pioneered the use of obese coprophilic transexuals as protagonists in their films.
At the risk of going all Peter Travers on you: See this movie. It's hilarious and sad and informative and there's a dude named Hunky Daddy in it and, since Salton CIty is essentially Palm Springs's neightbor, Sonny Bono* makes an appearance. I could tout this thing all day and not succeed at conveying it's total and supreme awesomeness, so I'm going to stop. But seriously: watch it. Call in sick from work, cancel your honeymoon, leave your grandma waiting on her front porch, let your kids ride the city bus home. Do what needs to be done.
Unfortunately, this sometimes fetid wonderland is out of striking distance on this tour. It would be worth stopping in, I assure you, but we'll be passing it on the South on one of our most intensive driving days and, we don't have the hours to spare. Speaking of driving, we got Patrick Stewart back yesterday. And...
...well...
She has a clean bill of health. We were perplexed. Our mechanic was perplexed. The glaze of filth on the back door from the last oil-leak debacle was perplexed. Maybe yesterday's letter was answered by the Gods. Perhaps we were overreacting to the giant plume we trailed for half of our last tour. Maybe cars are sentient beings with immune systems. We haven't the faintest. For now, all we can do is drive her, watch the meters, and embrace religion. If you see me at your door in a short sleeve white shirt, a black tie, and a backpack, don't answer the bell.
*He was a big advocate for the area, so he figures pretty heavily in the documentary. One particularly haggard lady talks of him with a twinkle in her eye before deadpanning: "Too bad he went skiing."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
10 comments:
Just in case anyone doesn't know what coprophilic is..
*An abnormal, often obsessive interest in excrement, especially the use of feces for sexual excitement
Justin.. Just Nasty! I hope you're not into this. The visions are disturbing...
Of course I'm not. Devine, on the other hand, she/he was. And yes, it was in a movie. And yes, I am still disturbed. Thanks Baltimore.
Yes. Patrick Stewart is a she. I know it's hard to deal with, a bald, Enterprise-heading tranny ferrying us around the country, but vehicles & ships are women in English and I wasn't about to crap on a long, upstanding tradition.
I just checked under the hood for tribbles. There were a couple, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Ineffable...
...T.S. Eliot's Book of Practical Cats...
Remember?
The story of that last shit-eating scene...Waters paid Devine an enormous sum of money, enough for he/she to get the final piece of his/her anatomy chopped for the transformation.
DoubleD: I don't remember that particular poem or part or what have you. But I'll be damned if I don't remember half the poems. And the play. In which old tires figured in most of the sets.
As for the...um...yeah. I'm gonna let that one go.
with so much talk of sir patrick, why no pictures? and is the good sir the "prospector" that i met last october or a new heap?
and to further your immersion into all things salton sea you should be made aware of a band called throwrag. they come from that wasteland and are so proud of it that most all of their lyrics make reference to it. their second album is even called desert shores.
their live show is so drunken and debaucherous that no one is left questioning that a group this white trash could come from anywhere but the salton sea. at the throwrag show i saw the lead singer (wearing nothing but cowboys boots and a super tiny pair of bikini briefs) drunkenly demanded that the audiance "buy me a dream cathcher... i want you to stop at a gas station and buy me t-shirt with an airbrushed unicorn on it. i want you to buy me crystal ball with a dune-buggy in it..." i knew this man was as true of a salton sea resident as they come.
-crowley
Justin,
The ewok village is not in Armstrong State Redwoods park but in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park up near Crescent City where there is more rainfall and thus more ferns.
Mo: That's the last time I trust Zach. My world, it crumbles.
Post a Comment