Sunday 2/18/07

We all got up early and headed off to Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Forrest in Oro Grande, right on route 66. It’s a great installation. The bottle trees function as very beautiful pedestals for his assemblages, which are mounted on the top.

Elmer says he discourages donations because he’s happy. His wife, Linda, is happy too (Elmer does the dishes). I told him I’m retired from my day job to do assemblage full time and (do the dishes) too. It’s the way to be.

As is often the case with eccentric artists (like ArtCar folk) Elmer was welcoming, lucid, and articulate and his good vibe was infectious. Completing the analogy was Elmer’s dog, Charlie.

We went down route 66 a piece and stopped at the first service station at Oro Grande Center. It didn’t have restrooms so we walked across the street to a park with public bathrooms, but were immediately confronted with friendly, but quite sleazy park denizens. Raya tried to use the ladies room but a lady in there was shouting “Hello” Theresa is that you?” “hello?” Raya tried to communicate at first, but then decidedly wisely that the woman was circling the airport and the ladies room was out of order. Theresa, in fact, was outside accosting a gentleman who was trying to compliment our cars. Half his nose had been shot off or bitten off (not recently). He tried to brush her off:

Nose-man: “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

Theresa: “Why don’t you leave this park alone?”
“Can you PLEEZE not get in a fight do DAY!”

It was clear from her intonation and his face that she was referring to fisticuffs with strangers not squabbles with her. It wasn’t the only hint that we needed to vamoose so we started to mosey, but just at that minute Ken wandered into the men’s room so we all spent an uncomfortable couple of minutes chatting with half a dozen tweaked out desert rats.

Like I said in the last post, 8 Humans and 5 dogs.

– Marilyn Dreampeace & Sammy the dog in Wet Dreams
– Emily Duffy & Meela the dog in the Vain Van pulling a trailer
– Ken Duffy in the Mondrian Mobile
– Philo Northrup w/Raya Miller plus dogs Huckleberry & Dancer in Daisy Singer
– Jake Goldstein & John Merlie in Von Tiki will be coming as far as Joshua Tree
– Charlie Russell and Plato the dog in Cinnabar Charm will meet us in Joshua Tree

— Rebecca Caldwell Hellborne will meet us somewhere in the desert in Carthedral.
— Darrick Servis and Tank Grrl will meet us in Douglas in a mundane rental car they’ll festoon with magnets.

The rendezvous was supposed to be Pea Soup Andersons – it’s one of those really cheesy roadside affairs with bad food and a huge gift shop. In true Philo form I went the wrong way on the freeway and missed it, so we met down the line a bit. Turns out Pea Soup Andersons was closed due to a fire anyway.

The Von Tiki, our full service Mobile Tiki Bar, drove into the T & A (truck stops of America) hoping for a grand entrance but an exploding truck tire on a big rig upstaged it. Nonetheless, they came prepared with a windshield wiper container full of tequila, and new saloon doors that were also aquariums replete with fish. Marilyn Dreampeace added leopard disco boots that had fish tank heels. We’re ready for camping.

Once we got off the interstate the drive turned beautiful. The 58 took us through rolling green hills spotted with boulders. Trains paralleled out route and their tracks passed through tunnel after tunnel in order to climb 4000 feet. It was so picturesque that a photo of it would surely look like a Lionel set. As we watched them go in and out of three short hillside tunnels and wobbly prop plane dove right at us. As it veered directly towards the Vain Van we realized that an airstrip started just a few yards from the road. It cleared our caravan by only 100 feet or so. Planes, trains and automobiles . . .

As the sun lowered we were treated to pink hilltops peaking through purple mountain ranges, and buildings on hilltops that looked like foreign legion castles with 8-foot thick adobe walls. As we get closer to Edwards Air Force Base the mountaintop buildings turn to steel.

As always the ArtCars receive a constant stream of thumbs up and smiles as we drive. My Favorite was a van driving by our caravan holding up a hand-made sign (magic marker on ripped cardboard) that said “Love Your Car!” At the Firebaugh rest stop someone says they saw these cars at the San Jose Museum of Art.

Ken Duffy says over the CB that he saw the other Mondrian Car in Berkeley in the parking lot at work. He works at Oracle, or at least the company he works for was bought by Oracle. The “other” Mondrian car was made by a local artist that didn’t participate in events. She asked to be taken off the ArtCar mailing list about nine years ago and no one reported seeing it so I assumed it was junked. Turns out a technical writer at Oracle (Ken is also a technical writer at Oracle) bought it five years ago wants to bring it to ArtCar shows. Just as Emily’s Mondrian goes into Arizona retirement, we get a replacement Mondrian!