Travel Photography > Desert Southwest > Trona, California

On the road out, I played a sampling of East Coast-Techno-Industrial. It purrs and pulsates and blinks with a whonk.whonk.whonk. Its composer probably imagines a post-blade runner world; with buildings and smoke and nighttime all day long; and blue-haired women in black-clad leather; but here it was my anthem to the dark desert, and I have a feeling that the composer would have been alright with my taking his music out of his world and into my own.

An hour later, I was in Ridgecrest, the motel was clean, so I took a shower and headed for the El Charro bar. Whenever you happen on a small bar in a small town, its best to appear a completely incurious person, and so I did. The Mexican gentleman behind the bar asked me if I wanted "domestic" or "import." I always like to make the bartender happy, so I said "Pacifico" and greeted the only other soul in the bar. Brian was a 26 year old former dump truck driver for the army.

"So what's there to do in Ridgecrest?"
"You know, bars."
"And during the day?"
"Well you can go riding."
"Motorcycles? Do you ride"
"No."
"So what do you do?"
"Bars. Dancing."

Go to any small bar in any small town, and you will get the same answer. "Too many people there huh?" "Yeah." "Way too many fucking people there huh?" "Yeah." And he started laughing and drew the last sip from his pitcher and said, "That's it. Too many fucking people." He kept laughing when an older fat sow of a woman entered the bar, ordered a beer (Michelob Light) and soon Brian became her victim. She asked what he did and, "Why the hell are you still in Ridgecrest?"

"Well, because its free because I'm livin' with my gran-ma."

"Oh, yeah, and so that's your one opt-out with every reason to leave. What do you do here?"
"Well, I don't work here. I work outta town."
"Oh, yeah, where do you work?"
"In Olancha."

Here I budded in,

"Olancha, isn't that far?", I said.
"An hour and a half."
"Yeah, but isn't it near Lone Pine?"
"Yeah."
"And isn't Lone Pine near the Alabama Hills?"
"You mean those funny rocks just a couple miles north?"

Then, the large woman budded back in, and heckled Brian some more.

"My son got himself an ed-ucation. Now he's blowing down in Riverside. You know what blowing is?"
"Yeah," he said, "It's riding dirt bikes."
"Yeah," she said, "And he's fucking got himself backed by advertisers."
"Oh yeah," said Brian, "Who's he ridin' for?"

"You know the funny shoes that curl up on the toes. Yeah them, but I think they're clown shoes. But who fuckin' cares because he's got a good job and you're stuck here in Ridgecrest because you never got an ed-uc-ation."

So again I butted in, "Where are you from Rhonda?"

"Riverside."
"Why are you here?"
"Just passing through on our way to Mammoth."

She had no reason to heckle Brian. He was just a desert kid - will die happy - and she had to make up for all the misery in her Riverside life that I couldn't help but pounce.so I said "Oh good god. Riverside. What a miserable place."

Whats the difference between Riverside and Ridgecrest? Both dirty desert towns with dirty people. The difference between Ridgecrest and Riverside is that there are too many people in Riverside. And I turned to Brian and said, "Too many fuckin' people in Riverside."

In his drunken stupor, he gave me the high-five.

"And what do you do in Riverside? Play mini-golf?" In that hour at El Charro, I met Brian, Rhonda, a fellow who was just released from jail, the Ridgecrest detective, who said that Brian was going to live a life of trouble and a lady that told Brian that he should get into the "Wall Street Journal", because there is a lot of money in the "Wall Street Journal", but that women were now accounting for 90% of investment in the "Wall Street Journal." Then I met Frank, who had lived in Korea, The Philippines and Guam as a cryptology specialist for the Navy, and had just called his motherless kids, who were home alone watching reruns of Friz Frelong's "The Flea Circus."

But I remembered Jerry's advice in an old song about a gambler crossing the country on his way to Las Vegas; "Don't you touch hard liquor, just a cup of cold coffee.gotta get up in the morning, and go." So I asked Brian in his drunken stupor, "Are you sure Olancha is an hour and a half away."

"At 70-75, yip."

"Thanks."

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