Steve McQueen once said, “I'd rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than anyplace else on earth.” and I couldn't agree more.
I first came out into the desert in 1974. I was hitching to one of my all time favorite places on earth, The Grand Canyon and my rides took me right through the lower Colorado Desert. It was late spring and I was amazed and astounded. Already the temp was over 100 degrees and you could feel the heat like a weight pressing down on your skin. The sun shined all day in a cloudless blue sky from horizon to horizon. It beat down on everything, and everything under it was wild and free and untouched by man. Only the toughest and wildest things could survive out there, the coyote, the sidewinder, the scorpion, the tarantula, the lizard, the hawk and roadrunner. Even the kangaroo rat, a cute furry little animal, was tough. They live in the desert yet they never drink water for their entire lives, and if that ain't tough then I don't know what is. The plants were mean and strong too. Most had thorns or spines, some 2" long that could go right through your shoe. Others with ones so fine you could barely see them but if you brushed up against one, you'd spend hours with a pair of tweezers picking them out of your flesh. The plants that didn't have any thorns were so tough or tasted so bad that nothing, no matter how hungry would ever eat them, and between the plants was the desert itself. Naked rocks and sand showing themselves to a sun so powerful that it gives even them all a sunburn called desert patina, but the most amazing thing of all was the silence. When you stood still and listened, all you could hear was the AUM, your own beating heart with the desert wind rushing around your body. It was truly majickal, and I was transfixed.
Since I had other things to do at this time I only stayed a couple of days then hitched on to the Canyon. I didn't return to the desert until 1977. I have been living in one, on and off ever since.
Up until the late 80's almost all the people living in the desert, outside the cities that is, could pretty much be divided up into two cat categories; the retired and the outlaw, who were a lot of the time one and the same. These were wild and hardy folks who wanted to live their lives free, to do what they wanted with no neighbors or law to tell them what to do, and they were all well armed.
Once when I were sitting in the hot springs some older friends of mine, John and Marge pulled up. They were a retired couple with white hair in their mid 60's who drove a yellow VW bug and had a white toy poodle named Baby who went with them where ever they went. They got in the hot springs then told every one there about an incident that had occurred on their way that morning to town (35 miles away).
John starts, "We were almost to town when this punk kid in his big fancy car gets behind us. Since there's too much traffic to pass us (a two land road) and he wants to go fast, he starts blinking his lights, honking his horn and yelling cuss words out his window at us."
Marge interrupts, "He was giving us the finger too. "
John continues, “Yeah, and what was I suppose to do, pull off into the sand so he could pass. Ha! When we get to where it turns into four lanes, he pulls along side of us and cusses us real good. Then he gets right in front of us and slows down to 20 and won't let us pass."
Marge breaks in. "When we got to the stop lights they were red so I tell John to pull up beside him."
"Which I do" John says.
Marge goes on, "When we got even with the creep I pulled our .38 out of the glove box, rolled down the window and yelled, "Hey you! Stupid! You want trouble?" then cocked back the hammer."
John's laughing then he says, "You should of seen that punks face! Here's Marge with a loaded revolver not three feet away pointing the pistol right at his ugly head and Baby on Marge’s lap is going nuts barking at him. The punk turns white then floors the gas running the red light. And it's a good thing too, because I believe Marge might of shot him."
"Might of, Hell!" Marge says, "Would of, if he had given me any trouble."
And this is from one of our more upstanding citizens because the desert draws the dregs of society to it.
People who have a choice; prison or the desert. The biker, the doper, the drunk, the psychotic, sometimes all rapped up in the same person. It draws the unwanted, the gay, the old, the hip, the crazy, with sometimes all of these rapped up in the same individual. There's plenty of room for all out here since most of the "normal" folks live in the cities like Palm Springs, E1 Centro or Yuma, but it's the fringe dwellers who make life interesting. While the normal folks have TV to watch, we have each other to entertain us. We've had interactive entertainment for years which is sometime good, sometimes bad, but it is never boring. We almost always work out any problems among ourselves too.
We don't need the law and the law knows it mostly leaving us alone. Sometimes a new cop will get transferred into the desert and hassle a few folks but either they mellow out real fast or they don't last long because we know where they live.
Like the cop who thought he was bad and hassled the wrong dudes and got his brand new $20,000 automobile stolen and stripped then got a phone call telling him where the body was. He cooled out. Or the cop who like to give out tickets for chicken shit stuff like running stop signs, not using seat belts or speeding. One night he stopped the wrong car for a burned out taillight and received five bullets in his chest. Luckily he was wearing his bulletproof vest at the time. He transferred out and was never seen again. Plus, we lived over 30 miles from the nearest cop shop so by the time the cops get the call and get to the scene, it’s usually all over.
Although every now and then they are useful because there are some truly bad people in the desert, like Sammy and his buds, the Glasner boys. They were into anything that made them money, dealing bad drugs, gunrunning, smuggling, stealing, threatening or conning. They weren’t particular about their victims either. Everyone was fair game. Anytime a house got robbed the first question anyone asked was, "Were the Glasner boys in town?" The answer was always in the affirmative.
The cops knew of Sammy and the boys, they'd been in the desert for years, but even the cops were afraid of them. The boys were known to burn down houses of anyone who really pissed them off, or sometimes just for the insurance money. Anyone who they just got mildly mad at, they'd simply beat up. Sammy lived in his own house right in the middle of a small community of a few hundred souls and dealt speed and smack to the dregs of the area at all hours of the day and night. The neighbors hated Sammy, but like the cops they feared him so this went on for years. Finally, the neighbors had enough and told the cops that either the cops do something about Sammy or they would because they were tired of hiding in their own homes. The cops had no choice so about 20 of them raided Sammy's place early one morning. They told Sammy to surrender. Sammy told them to go fuck themselves. They told him they were coming in to get him. Sammy told them to just try it. A short gun battle then ensued. When the smoke cleared, no one was hit but Sammy's house was on fire. Everyone watched as it burned to the ground. The cops searched the ruins for bodies but found a trap door instead. When they opened it, there was Sammy who promptly surrendered and told the cops that he had burned his housed down himself to destroy any evidence, but since shooting at cops is a crime in California, Sammy went away to prison for a long long time.
The Glasner boys are all now in prison too, but they went in one by one for things like arson, assault and armed robbery. The last Glasner, Little Jake, to go in went in for purse snatching which may not sound like much but consider this; Little Jake had dropped an engine block on his spine and had become a paraplegic so he was snatching purses from his wheel chair. That left only the father, Big Jake on the loose. Big Jake had a small auto repair shop that he worked at as little as possible, preferring to drink as much beer as one man could then terrorize the desert driving around in his sand rail with his dog, Bear and his 12 gauge, Bob. One night Jake came home late drunk as a skunk and found himself locked out. He went and got Bob then put five rounds into the offending door, walked in and told his wife that if she ever locked him out again, that she'd look worse than the door. He then promptly passed out on the couch. His wife called the cops but they told her there was no law about a man blowing his own door to bits. Jake laughed when told us this story then said, "Ya know, that door might not of even been locked. I just may have been just too drunk to open it."
Big Jake moved to Nevada in 1990 saying that the desert was getting too crowded with too many god damned civilized city folks moving in and he needed more room to roam. A sentiment I totally agreed with. But we had lots of fun in the desert between 1977 and 1989 before the snowbirds with their small minds and love for order arrived en mass.
Before that you could do anything you wanted. If you wanted to ride your dirt bike naked wearing only a pistol on your hip while smoking a number and drinking a bottle of tequila, there was no one to you any different.
Which is what Coyote Bill did all the time. He called himself Coyote Bill because he liked hunting coyote’s, but he liked drinking tequila more so he wasn't a very successful hunter. He stood 6'6", weighted 140 pounds and carried a .45 caliber black powder pistol. He rode a little trail 90 around the desert shooting his pistol off into the sky when he was real drunk and feeling fine. He was finally run out of town a few years back for jacking off in the bar and scaring off the tourist trade.
I've got lots of tales about the people who inhabit the desert, most of which I personally witnessed myself. Some are funny like; The Speed Freaks Thanksgiving. The speed freak lesbian commune invited every one they knew to their house for Thanksgiving. They stayed up all night long high on crank so the turkey and all the trimmings were done by 4 a.m. They decided to try some just to make sure it tasted good. At noon when the twenty or so invited guest, including moi, showed up for dinner, all that was left were some cold mashed potatoes and some even colder gravy.
Or; Are You Queer? Rod and his 14 year old son are in the hoot pools all by themselves late one night when a pick up with two guys in it pull up and park. They get out of the truck ands walk over to the springs. As they do Ron notices that they are each carrying a shotgun. Without a word they point the shotguns in Rods and his sons direction the one of them asks Rod, "Are you guys queer?"
Rod tells them that they are not. The guy then asks Rods son the same thing. Rods son assures him that he's not queer either. Still aiming their weapons they ask Rod who the kid is with him. Rod tells the guy that it's his son. They guy then lower their shotguns and one of them says, "It's a good things you two ain't fags cuz we are lookin' for some queers to kill tonight. They then walk balk to their pick up, get in and drive away.
Next day when Rod told me this story I asked him what the guys looked like. He held up his hand with his thumb and finger in a circle and said, "A huge fucking hole about this big."
Or; The 3 Tons Of Fun. Which was menage a trios who were together for years and came out to the hot spring on a regular basis. It included the wife, a woman 5'6" who weighed around 250 pounds, the husband, 6'2" who was at least 450, and the boyfriend 6 foot even and well over 300. They all came out to the springs, got naked and drunk then fooled around until they got horny enough to take it home.
Or; Garage Sale. Where a couple I knew let Coyote Bill watch their house while they went on vacation for two weeks. When they returned they found that Bill had held a garage sale and had sold every thing they owned. When they walked into their house, the only things in it were Bill and a lot of empty tequila bottles and beer cans.
Or; I Need A Drink. When Little Stevey, wandering in the desert came upon a house and being thirsty, broke in then proceeded to drink up all the booze, smoke up all the cigarettes and eat as much as he could. Satisfied, he then sat down in the living room and watched TV until the owner came home and wanted to know what the holy hell was going on. Little Stevey looked up at them and said, "I was thirsty." Then he passed out only to wake up in jail.
Or; Look At This. A couple that often came out to the hot springs who were in their late 20's and had shaved every hair off of their entire bodies from the neck down and had pierced their nipples. Plus, he had pierced his foreskin and scrotum. She, her labia’s and clitoris. Then they put gold rings in the holes and gold chains in the rings. They liked to give everyone a close up look at their genitalia by spreading their legs real far apart while sitting on the log or bending over to pick something up. They tell everyone how great their sex life was with all the gory details, especially about hooking their chains together then how great it feels when the chains pull on their genitalia on the out stroke. However, as far as I know, they never had sex with anybody else.
Or; Not With My Daughter! Our friend bisexual Barbara, a real fun loving party girl got run out of town after having been discovered in the 69 position with the 14 year old daughter of one of her best friends when the mother went shopping and left Barbara with the girl then came back early. Mom knew how Barbara was but raised a big stink anyway, even calling the cops. We all though that mom was just jealous.
Or; Take My Wife. A guy in his 40’s who’s impotent brings his mid 30’s wife out to the pools very late at night once or twice a month to get fucked by any and all males who happen to be in the pools at the time. She had given him an ultimatum: I love you but either get it up or find me someone who can or else I’m leaving you because I’m still young and horny and I ain’t giving up sex just because you can’t perform any more. He told us he came out really late so he couldn’t see what was happening and usually at that time there weren’t more than 2 or 3 dudes awake. I once asked him how he felt about it. He just shrugged and said, “At least I still have my wife.”
Or; Burning Down The House. It's New Years Eve and we are in the desert patying majorly at our friend s Shelly'ss house who has a hot tub smack dab in the middle of her living room with glass walls on 2 sides. Plus there's a huge bonfire roaring in the yard. There must be 30 or more of us some naked and some clothed out here tonight which is cool and so clear you can see every star in the night sky. Now out here houses are few and far between. Why the closest neighbor is over a block away and after that it's 3 or 4 or more blocks to anyone else house.
I'm outside at the fire drinking out of a bottle of Scotch with some friends whe all of a sudden we hear a giant expolsion! We all turn in the direction of the noise and see a house about 4 blocks away totally engulfed in flames. We all yell in unison to the house, “Call the fire department then get out here and check this out!” Soon everyone is outside watching the house burn to the ground in less than 20 minutes. What a show! Especially on New Years eve. Since the closest fire department id about 15 mile away by the time they get here the house is just a pile of smoldering embers so they do their duty and spray some water on it for awhile then leave.
A few days later I saw a fireman I knew and asked him what happened and how could it burn so fast. He told me they think the house filled with propane. Then some spark inginited it, blew up and burned it down.
Or; The Vodkie Brothers. There's these two brother in their 50'. Both divorced, out of shape and living in the desert together. Every morning they show up at George's camp with a 1.75 ltr of the very cheapest vodka they can find. One of the bro's then unscews the lid then throws it into the desert saying, “Well, I done lost the lid so I guess we're just gonna have to drink the whole thing.” To which his brother agrees. They are always polite asking if anyone else would like a snort but it’s way too early and it's way too crappy of vodka so everyone declines their generous offer. Then for the next 3 or 4 hour the bro's sit there and drink the entire bottle, get up then stagger back to their car. This went on almost daily for about 6 months then no more bro's and nobody I know whatever happened to them.
Or; Animal Lover. Our friend Lauren is a sex fiend maybe even a sex addict because she not only likes sex, she'll have sex with anyone, anytime. He newest sex toy is a male chihuahua named Rowdy and nobbody wants him around especially other girls. Because Rowdy like Lauren is a sex maniac. He's either humping everybody's leg or sniffing their crotch. And he's persistent too. Push him away and he'll come right back so sad to say poor little Rowdy just ain't welcome anywhere anymore. Of course it's not Rowdy's fault. Lauren taught him to lick her pussy when there's nobody else around to pleasure her. She's not ashamed of it either. In fact she introduces Rowdy as “her cunt dog”.
Now here I'd like to say that me and most of the folks I hang around with and am friends with are quite liberal when it comes to sex. About the only thing we agree on is, no sex with children ever under any circumstances. But other than that it's hey, whatever floats your boat and you have a willing partner. I've even known other people of both sexes who had animal girl or boy friends. With the usual reason of they're just plain tired of dealing with members of the opposite sex and they're not gay so.................. But they have at least the good manners not to subject their friends to their partners sexual appetite. So everyone agrees Lauren, you are always welcome in our homes but Rowdy stays either in the car or at your house because if you bring him then you can't come in. I have exactly the rule with my friends who indulge in other pleasures that I want no part of as the next tale will illustrate.
Or; Tweak City. Kelly and I have decided to rent a place this season instead of spending it in the van. And we're in luck because a very cheap apartment is for rent in a small complex. The reason it's so inexpensive is not only are all the residents tweakers but one of them is the main meth dealer for the entire area.
But that''s no problem for us because we have lived with every type of doper before and as long as you follow their rules then things will run smoothly. The main rule in living with cranksters, coke heads or junkies is; never leave anything outside your door, keep your door locked, when you leave make sure your windows are locked, always lock your car and keep its windows rolled up. Because tweakers, cokesters and junkies have a proclivity for “finding” things that are just “laying” around “abandon” and therefore “free” for the taking. Since we know this rule we very seldom “lose” anything.
However we have a rule that when we move in to a place with the above denizens we let them know right from the get go. Which is; During regular human hours you are always welcome in our home, hell, we'll even party with you, as long as your as long as you're not cranking or junked up. But if you show up at our door tweaking, wired or smacked out then we'll politely tell you to come back when you're straight and close the door in your face making it a point to lock it. The dopers understand us and even respect us for it so as I said, no problem.
We lived there the entire season with the meth heads and only had two minor incidents. One was when I foolishly left my bike out once overnight. It was locked up but one of the tweakers “found” the handle bar pack on it so in the morning it was gone. The other was, I put a potted house plant outside to get some full sun in the morning. By noon it was gone. I did ask the meth heads about both incidents but none of them knew anything about them but did promise to keep an eye out for the “lost” items. Needless to say, they were never recovered.
On a side note; the apartment building was owned by a cop who, as long as he got his rent on time, didn't find out anything major was broken and wasn't called out to the place in his “official” capacity, never once bother anyone living there
Or; The Great Cricket Invasion Of '82'. Crickets! Crickets! Crickets are everywhere! Little black crickets where ever you look. They're in our homes, in our schools, in our stores, in our restaurants and bars. They're even in our library. Pull a book off the shelf and crickets com pouring out of the shelf. In the day time they at least try to hide but if you look under a board, under a rock, under anything laying on the ground, there they are; millions and millions of little black crickets. But the don't try and hide at night crawling over anything and anyone who's in their way. Plus half of them, the males, are chirping to attract the females so they can make even more crickets.
Of course all the desert animals who are not strict vegetarians are happy. They can't eat them fast enough before they're totally satiated then have to rest before feasting on more crickets. And it's not like we ain't seen crickets before. Every spring there are an influx of them but never like this before in such huge numbers. Even the old timer can't remember a cricket invasion like this one.
It last for almost 3 weeks then as fast as they appeared they're gone. Where they came from and where they went no one knows. All we do know is we're all glad it's over and we can all return to concerns other than crickets.
Of course some of the tales aren’t so funny: Like House For Rent. Kelly and I had been living in our van and wanted to rent a place for the winter. We saw Indian Jonny one day and he told us that a week ago he had been out at the hot springs when only he and Gene were out there. It was still hot, 110 both air and water temperature. Gene was sitting in the hot water where he drank two full fifth of Jim Beam in a short time. He then died right before Jonny's eyes. By the time the paramedics got there it was all over, so Jonny told us that Gene's house should be for rent. We called the landlord who said, indeed it was and that we could even have everything in it. We had to break the police tape to move in. We had to clean the place up but after that it was home for the next six months. Some of the tales out of the desert are just plain sick and I won't go into those. But all these stories have one thing in common, all the people in them were free to do and act like they wanted and it was very seldom that anyone really got hurt.
In fact, even though almost everybody had guns and I saw a lot of them fired, and even more displayed, sometime in anger, I saw only one person ever get shot and that was an accident. Kelly and I were sitting in the hot pool late one night and in one of the cooler pools were three drunk cowboys arguing about; In a .22, what was better, a hollow point or a steel jacket. After arguing for awhile, one of the cowboys gets out of the pool telling his buds, "I'll show you jerk offs what's better." and walks over to their pick up.
He grabs his pistol and as he's bringing it around accidentally squeezes off a round shooting himself in the thigh. He starts yelling, "Goddammit! I done shot myself in the leg."
His partners think this is really funny. They start laughing and asking him if it was a hollow point or steel jacket.
He tells them, "Fuck you two! Jus’ get me to the hospital afore I bleed ta death."
They get out of the water, go over and take a look at the wound. In between laughing and razzing their friend they say that it don't look too bad to them, just pour a little whiskey on it and a band aid, but the shot guy ain't going for it. He demands to go to the hospital.
One of the guys tells him, "Okay, but yer gonna hafta ride in the bed cuz I don't want yer stinkin’ blood all over my seats."
They argue over this for a few minutes before the shot guy agrees. His friends lift him up and toss him in bed with him howling in pain and cussing them. They just laugh and tell him that it's his own fault for being so stupid. They get in front and roar down the road to the hospital (the closest is over 40 mile away). We never did find out if it was a hollow point or steel jacket.
So as with all good things, the desert where I lived and played for years with my friends and enemies came to an end. In 1987 there were no more than twenty full time resident who lived at the springs from Oct. to May. No one stayed all summer. By 1989 the Snowbirds and the Rainbow/Drainbows were there in full force and the resident population was up to a hundred or more. By 1990 it was double that. Plus, some of the Drainbows were staying all summer long. The Rainbow/Drainbows weren’t too bad though. They almost always camped away from the springs and only came over a couple times a day to use the hot water. Or the Drainbows to try and mooch something off of the Snowbirds. It was the "We Must Have Order!" Snowbirds that spoiled the hot springs for me and the other long time free thinking folks.
First, the Snowbirds weren’t satisfied with the way the pools were. So they re-engineered the whole place. The pools had always been three or four holes dug into the sand that, depending on the whim of the people there, were always changing in size and shape. They filled with hot water from a single source. The engineers rocked in three of the pools making their size and shape permanent. They planted more palm trees and other vegetation then built a patio around the pools for their lawn chairs. Some of these changes I liked, but then they started going too far. They dug a trench and put up barriers so the dirt bikes couldn't cruz up to the pools anymore. They said the dirt bikes were too noisy and raised too much dust. And they didn't like the bikers staring at their nude women.
After they did that, I always made it a point to negotiate the barriers, pull right up to the pools on my bike and gun my motor (a loud 250 Bultaco) then glare at every one in the pool. If anybody said anything to me, I’d ride around the pools doing donuts raising as much dust as I possibly could. They put up a "Slow 5 MPH" sign. I tore them down, burned them, then roared up and down the road at 60 mph. They started draining and cleaning the pools. If I were around, I’d take the hose out and sit in the pools as long as possible, making them wait on me. They put up a rock barrier so cars couldn't park within 50 feet of the pools. I’d move the rocks and park right on the edge of the pools.
I became known as, "That Asshole Tai."
At first they tried to reason with me "But Tai,” they’d whine, “the women don't liked to be starred at.”
Tell them to not come to the pools naked.
"But Tai, the dirtbikes and noisy and create a lot of dust."
They have just as much right to be here as you do.
"But Tai, there's kids here, five miles per hour is fast enough."
Teach your kids not to play in the road.
"But Tai, no one else has to park right next to the pools."
So what.
"But Tai, the pools need to be cleaned."
I've been coming here for over 10 years, and as far as I know, no one has ever gotten a disease from being in them.
"But Tai, we've all agreed that these are good rules."
I told them, "No one has ever ask me. And no one except Indian Jonny, has been coming out here longer than Kelly and me. And I know you didn't ask any of us. Now until someone around here can show me a deed to this place, then you got no right to tell me, or anyone else what to do. This has always been a free space and I will treat it as such. And there's nothing that you can do or say to change that."
"But Tai, you don't live here anymore."
Kelly and I had moved two miles away into some tamarisk trees with no one else within a mile of us. "That's because I can't stand to be around all you motherfuckers with all your stinking rules and hassles. How long have you been coming out here? Two maybe, three years? Well, until people like you started showing up, all kinds of folks use to come by to party and enjoy the hot pools. Now that you assholes have taken over, no one comes out here except others like you because it's too much fucking hassle. Don't do this! Don’t do that! Well fuck that shit! I'll do exactly as I please and there's nothing you can do about it."
I’d finish my rant then look them right in the eyes smiling my best smile. Looking at me they'd know that other than physical violence there was nothing they could do. And if they did get physical with me, then I would be more than willing to reciprocate.
To show you how seriously these asshole took their ideas listen to this: One day Kelly and I pulled up to the springs into quite an uproar. People were standing around yelling and crying, standing over a prone body laying in the dirt. We hopped out of the van and asked the haps. Paul came over to us and told us that a bunch of the engineers had been arguing hotly over which rocks to use to rock in the hot pool. They'd taken the old ones out to clean, and Andy, a guy only 50 years old, got so pissed off that they were using different rocks that he had keeled over with a heart attack and died instantly. Now everyone was waiting for the cops to show up and the meat wagon to come and collect the body. We could hardly believe it, dying over rocks. What a bunch of morons!
But of course there was something that they could do to ruin it for me and the other long time free thinkers, they could just keep coming. The next year they doubled in size again, and again the year after that. During Christmas vacation in 1992 there were an estimated 2000 bodies there. Every time I used the pools, someone would hassle me about something so I came less and less. Finally in 1993 the County Health Dept. came out for a look and was horrified. They contacted the owners and told them to shut it down or face a major fine. That summer the owners came out and capped the hot well and the springs were no more.