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Club feet? I don’t swim or row, but they don’t seem to mind my coming around to drink. Maybe its the friendly neighbor policy, but the South Enders do a mighty fine job of keeping the Aquatic Park interesting on Friday evenings. Come to think of it, the Dolphins aren’t such a bad lot either.

A couple months ago we went down to Big Sur to see Jonathan Richman play at the Henry Miller Library. Oddly enough I’m not really a huge fan of any of those three, yet together it made for a really beautiful weekend and I was happily surprised at how much I enjoyed it all. You know you’re getting to be a snob of the worst sort when you start openly admitting that Big Sur’s not your cup of tea. . . my apologies to Mother Nature, you’ve got a lovely daughter, this gal just requires a little more sunshine.

Still, I will not under any circumstances say it isn’t absolutely gorgeous down there. Camped Saturday night at Pfeiffer Big Sur SP and rolled down to the beach via secret path to watch Grayson catch a few waves the next morning. Franklin and I wandered further and found a lovely little sitting spot made from what must have been a gigantic tree back in the day.

A spot like this might even get me into re-reading Tropic Of Cancer. Maybe.

Back up the hill and on to Sunday evening’s entertainment.

All told, Jonathan Richman was great. My love for the Modern Lovers ended sometime during college and I think I just sort of shrugged him off as being too quirky and thus, annoying. Quirky he definitely is, but its this genuine weirdness that totally comes through in person in a way that doesn’t in movies we won’t name. He’s just such a nut, so totally affected, but in a way that makes you feel like its a persona he made up all on his own and will never grow out of, because its just him. I ramble, yes, but the man made me like his music again and now says hello whenever I see him at random places like the video store, so thumbs are up.

The Library itself is also fantastic with a huge outdoor area and a great selection of books all neatly arranged on their wooden shelves. I kind of want to live there. Not in Big sur, but in the Library.

Proutys were digging it as well.

Went over to Deetjen’s post-show, where Nate and Abby and Margeaux were nesting for the night. Had been wanting to see the place for a long time and it didn’t disappoint.

Those are some damn precious little cabins.

Dinner at the restaurant which was also fantastic, dark and woodsy and warm.

No room at the inn, so we drank another bottle then headed out with Grayson and Allie to  shack up in one of the tent cabins at Fernwood. More drinks, a little bonfire and a damn pretty 6 a.m. drive back home to round it off.

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Sur thing? I can’t say it isn’t lovely down there and with good company it makes for a fine, fine couple of days.

It does rather seem like we’ve got water on the brain, doesn’t it? Got invited to go clamming a little while ago and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get out of the house at 5:45 a.m. Hadn’t been clamming for years and was pretty unprepared for what ensued (years of clamming in the warm, shallow waters of Mexico will do that).  Drove up to Bodega Bay, rowed a little boat across the lagoon to the mud flats exposed by the super low tide and started the hunt. Early morning fog gave everything the quality of a lunar landscape.

Til now I’d never had to dig so much for one little clam.

I’d also never dug up anything that looked like that.

The keyhole shaped opening (hopefully) marks the descent of a nice, big Washington clam. There’s also horsenecks and a whole bunch of smaller guys.

After you find the proper hole, you get to start the digging part.  Most of them were down about a foot and a half, but you have to be careful not to crack the poor things with your shovel and smash their shells. Just because they’re getting eaten doesn’t mean they need to get beaten up beforehand…

My least favorite part: reaching in and pulling out the goods. It was inevitable that the first thing I touched every time was its long, slimy neck.

Clammers extraordinaire.

My ten big beautiful clams.

Pervert. Get your mind out of my clam.

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Clam on? We spent the day under the tutelage of Frank Quan, resident China Camp-er and knower of all things relating to the catching and eating of sea creatures, who took us up to Doran Regional Park and showed us the ropes. You need a fishing license to collect clams and there’s regulations on how many you can take in a day. Once home, Frank showed us how to split them open, cut out the tasty bits and fry them up in panko bread crumbs. Tastiest 3 a.m. snack I’ve mustered in a long time.

After years of wanting, Cousin Galen finally took me fishing. Packed up the rods and the kiddies and lit out for Lake Temescal last Friday after work. I’d never been there and had no idea it was such a gem. Early evening and most of the swimmers had gone home, leaving the lake placid and duck-strewn for us anglers.

Clare brought spritzes and a lovely grin.

Chicken livers: irresistible to everyone but catfish.

The Catfish Hunter awaiting his prey. From the tying of lines to where and how to cast, Cousin Galen has it down.

Dropped our lines and had some snacks (and hoped somebody else would go looking for snacks as well).

For my birthday I was given a copy of Dr. Arpad Gerster’s Notes Collected in the Adirondacks: 1895 & 1896 and it’s renewed an obsession with the lakes and lands of the Northeast. Not being from there really allows one to romanticize and believe there might be pockets such as this still in existence. Wooden canoes, canvas tents and knee-high lace-up boots…its a heaven I hope to explore someday soon.

Night fishing with a radio and a few bottles of wine. Who can resist that kind of lure?

Not this guy. Franklin reeled him in and the joy was palpable as he was laid flipping about on the deck. I think we all hoped it would happen, but you can’t beat the feeling of when it actually does.

Back at home, Galen showed us how to filet him, avoiding the bones and slicing away the skin. The good stuff then went into a container with milk to soak for a few hours and lose its fishiness.  A day later and we patted it dry, rubbed it with mustard and bread crumbs and cooked both filets over a campstove. Can you beat that?

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Who’s got bait legs? I’ve found a new love. Or maybe I just love anything slightly sporting that takes place on a body of water. In any case, I’m hooked and intend to keep fishing on the list of prominent hobbies. Which will require a bit of gear: we got our rods from Galen’s garage sale, but I know tackle and whatnot can be easily found and I picked up a rather nice, almost vintage-looking wooden net at Sports Authority with minimal hassle. The real hassle came from the Park Policeman in Temescal who took the 10:00 curfew very seriously and assumed that the prevalence of gray hairs and lady-like manners meant we were still in high school and should be treated as the warrant-less delinquents we obviously are. Oh, Park Police won’t you ever learn? We save our transgressions for the really big fish.

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Guess who got a you-know-what? Its officially three months since I bought a 1968 Volvo 144s. In that time we’ve:

-Replaced the central support bearing

-Replaced the shocks

-Replaced all four tires

-Had it aligned

-Bought a spare

-Sewed new seat belts

-Installed a stereo

-Managed to get the rear driver’s side door to open

-Managed to get the driver’s door to not open, then open

-Replaced the reflectors

-Snapped the right front lower ball joint

-Which consequently took out the right front tire

-Replaced the front lower ball joints (R and L)

-Replaced said tire

So far, so good…who says old cars aren’t any fun?

Four days of birthday followed by the fourth of July. This may be my favorite picture from that small sunbelt of birthday madness.

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Off to China Camp for the holiday. Displayed our pride by laying about in the sun all day imbibing copious amounts of the wrong kind of liquid.

Then on to downing copious amounts of the right kind of barbeque.

Zac, with Mariah.

Frankie, also with Mariah. That Mariah must be a fox.

I spend 5 years of my life trying to escape from this man and then he shows up on a remote beach another 5 years later. Ah, Michael Cheung. It was the lure of the poncho, I’m sure.

I think somebody’s forming the word “funch”.

Washington crossing the Delaware never had it this good. This picture makes me so happy.

Took a little evening-cocktail motor on the Seabird, then back to the Spenger shack for shackle records and the birth of the Mint-night Rambler. Plank dancing, broken knees, delightful conversations and late-night swimming. There were other things in there as well, but we’ll let them lie til the next time.

Two boats and a lot of sleeping ladies. We call this scenario the “Muir’s Delight”.

Jesus, what a fantastic way to wake up.

Breakfast in bed, delivered by rowboat.

Be careful where you invite us, we just might make ourselves at home.

Historical preservation and interpretation at its finest.

That bucket waited years for this day to arrive.

The arrival of afternoon reinforcements. No going home while there’s still wine to be had.

And dances to dance and books to be read.

Put a little shine on that alabaster peg and make a bunch of ladies very, very happy.

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Can you beat that? Not sure, but we just keep on trying. Long live the summer coven!

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Golden years? Gave myself a pretty spectacular birthday present this year…and yes, it goes all the way up.

Every once in a while I start dreaming of Southern California. Not the place I grew up in (though given enough time and distance I feel a certain longing for that too), but the sun-bleached and unforgiving landscape painted by the likes of Chandler, Fante and  Horace McCoy. The hot dry desert overrun with Joshua trees. Whitewashed stucco on Spanish-style bungalows.  Orange groves and oil fields and faded billboards. Wide swaths of two lane pavement ending in the desert or the  sea. Its a nice dream, sending small waves of goosebumps up my arms. Its also not an easily sustainable dream, as the tangle of  L.A. freeways leave little to the imagination and favorites like the Cabazon dinosaurs and Bun Boy have all but disappeared behind strip malls and chain stores. But I guess that’s a thesis unto itself, one much better left to Mike Davis or Kevin Starr. Still, there’s something about Southern California that I can’t shake, as if seeing still isn’t believing. Just as one of those trees isn’t actually a tree.

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Day 1

Left San Francisco on a Friday night and drove the long, vertical length of Central California til we reached Mohave at about 2 a.m. Found a cheap and suitably seedy motel and did what you do in cheap and seedy motels. Sleep.

Woke to the heat already rising and the wind whipping across the dry dirt.

Not much to see in town, but managed to find a thrift store and a fantastic Army-Navy surplus to rummage through. Old cars and machine parts and camping gear. Bought a badminton set and went to find the airplane graveyard.

Not hard to spot hundreds of planes in the middle of the desert.

Turns out the Mojave Air and Space Port isn’t just a boneyard, but also a home to the National Test Pilot School and the Rotary Rocket.

Continued on into the Antelope Valley and passed a sign indicating we’d entered the township of Llano, California. Started telling Franklin how I’d read about the Utopian colony of Llano Del Rio years ago and how it only lasted a few years during the 1910’s, when suddenly these stone structures passed by and a “Holy Fuck!” came flying out. Franklin generously pulled the car around and sure enough there stood the very same foundations and chimneys I’d just been describing.  Its really an interesting story, especially considering for a few years it honestly seems to have worked in creating the socialist utopia it intended; communal kitchens, dances and dinners, baseball teams and thriving Montessori-style schools. Aldous Huxley even spent some time there, long after the colony fell apart, writing and contemplating Utopian downfalls of his own.  Such an incredible thing to stumble across just by looking out the window.

Over the mountains again and into the quagmire of Riverside and its insanity of freeways and smog. Windows down in the air-condition-less heat and white knuckles all the way to the turn off for Palm Springs and our 3-day oasis, the Ace Hotel and Swim Club.

Cool, clean and all the post-modern amenities. A little on the spring-break side crowd-wise, but a patio all of our own rectified that rather quickly.

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Day 2

Ventured out to the much more adult Parker hotel the next day for what turned out to be a quintessential Hollywood brunch (I’d imagine). Two hours and a lot of greenbacks later and we emerged full of caviar benedict, lobster and mango salad and a whole lot of liquor. Sometimes you just have to go for it.

Walked the totally surreal grounds for a bit (I now know where the Colorado River’s water is diverted to), then thrifted til the heat got the better of us. Spotted an incredible space-age looking house up on the hillside, with this great curving roof that dipped almost to the ground. Haunted my imagination for days and after a bit of digging, found out it was designed for Bob Hope by John Lautner, who once apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright before making a name on his own.  It’s also interesting to note that, though the Jesse and Evelyn were there the entire time, I have no pictures of them whatsoever.

Man, I love all that whitewash against the scrubby desert.

Continued our gluttony with a taco feast brought to our patio, which naturally degenerated into late night tortilla fights followed by a good night’s beery sleep.

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Day 3

Spent the morning swimming and thrifting then said goodbye to Jesse and Evs and headed off to the Salton Sea. Didn’t really know what to expect or where to go, but got a shortlist from Chris McCaw and figured we’d just go see what was out there.

Passed acres of date farms along the way.

First stop, the North Shore Yacht Club. By the looks of things, the club building has just finished undergoing total renovation, complete with bright black asphalt and fresh paint in the parking lot. Gone is the well-skated (and graffitti-d) pool and there’s even a museum (which was closed) with exhibits about the building (designed by Architect Albert Frey) and the Sea in its heyday. At first glance it seems like a lovely place to hang out, maybe have a cocktail and watch water-skiers skate by.  Around the corner, however, lay the remains of whatever used to surround the Yacht Club bulldozed into piles of broken concrete.

The illusion of a placid, swim-friendly lake also began to crumble the closer we got to its shore.

So many dead fish that the sand appeared to be coarsely ground bones and shells.

Moved south to Bombay Beach and drove  onto the levy surround the “town”. Once a thriving weekend getaway, the place was all but obliterated by flooding in the 1970’s when two separate hurricanes caused the Sea to rise. A wall of dirt now keeps the Sea at bay, but the town’s diminished to 1-square mile of  trailers and dune buggies.

Beyond the levy abandoned trailers sit half-sunk in the hard-packed ground, brittling in the sun.

Sort of amazing that people have stuck it out there, weathering the heat in aluminum trailers and staring down the occasional gawkers. Its a tough folk that can handle desert living without recreational water nearby. We let them be and made our way out to Niland to catch Salvation Mountain in the waning light.

For whatever reason, I’d never really been interested in seeing the Mountain first hand, figuring it would look pretty much the same as the classic photo you always see. So glad I was wrong. Its amazing, with rooms and walkways and grotto-like caverns built in adobe and straw and slathered with paint. Read the story, like the place itself, it’s pretty surreal.

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Day 4

Woke up Tuesday to find the hotel nearly deserted.

Took our last swims and said goodbye to Palm Springs.

Back through the long stretch of desert, avoiding the bigger highways and whipping about in the late afternoon wind.

Air conditioning circa 1966.

Stopped somewhere off Highway 99, looking for a river to dip in. Didn’t find it, but the glass still came up half-full in true California style.

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America and the California Dream? As mentioned, there’s a whole lot of Southern California that falls into a category I’d rather forget about.  You can’t close your eyes to it all, but taking the back roads definitely gives the scenery a certain timeless slant. Since baby Blue isn’t fond of I-5 (nor necessarily am I) we took Highway 99 south instead, running through the once ranch-and-cattle towns of Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield. Deciding to bypass L.A. altogether, we took the 58 west to Mohave, then the 14 south through the weird tract-houses-in-nowhere that make up Lancaster and Palmdale. The 138 West took us past Llano (and a live elephant in someone’s front yard) and on to the inevitable mad tangle of the 15-215-10 in San Bernadino. Those last two hours were by far the scariest part of the whole 11-hour drive. On the return trip we switched it up just a bit, maximizing our desert time by climbing the Cajon Pass and running up the 395 for a while. Its a long, hot  drive, but there’s always Astro Burger and fruit stands and looking out for trees that aren’t really trees.

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Its hot and we’re making tracks. . . My radar says its summertime!

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On some faraway beach? As the tide brushes sand in my eyes, I’ll drift away