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“Clock In, Clock Out”

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Poet Louise Mathias

This past weekend was the annual Los Angeles Times Book Festival, in fact its 30th anniversary. I attended both days, listened to a number of poetry readings, and picked up some interesting books (as if I needed more). I liked the poems of Louise Mathias that she read from her collection, the hauntingly named What If the Invader Is Beautiful. Here is one of her intriguing desert poems:

Bombay Beach

You know someone, somewhere.
A collection of knives, linoleum, unfortunately.

There’s a room now in the chest,
Comprised of a secretive clock—

clock in, clock out. The blonde

unfastens the strap,
sorry human noise

divorced
of song, unlatched now in the palms,

cocaine and ridicule,
but also, love, also.

Below is a picture I shot at Bombay Beach, on the polluted shore of the Salton Sea, when my brother and I visited last year.

Back on the Grid

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It was a strange experience for me to relive the few hours my brother and I spent Visiting Bombay Beach and Slab City, those strange communities along the eastern edge of the Salton Sea. I keep wondering to myself what it would be like to live there, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I couldn’t survive there.

What if there were an emergency? And, with my lack of a pituitary gland as the result of a long-ago tumor, I do occasionally have emergencies. Would I be able to get my hands on Hydrocortisone HCL or Prednisone in time for me to avoid sinking slowly and lethargically into the boundary between our world and what, if anything, lies after?

And that’s only one thing. What about making the daily trip to Niland to get the necessary 5 gallons (or 19 liters) of water required for drinking, cooking, and washing? What about starting from scratch because some mentally unbalanced or drugged neighbor decides to set my encampment on fire?

I imagine that life in a place like Slab City has its moments, but it also has its anxieties and moments of outright fear. Check out this video about the Slabs from a visitor from abroad:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HsE9tMdR9dY%3Fsi%3Dgkq3kfLvFUte43QV
Ruhi Cenet’s Negative Take on Slab City

Sometimes there is a high price to pay for the type of freedom that Slab City represents. Whether it is “the last free place in America,” as it calls itself, or just one of the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno remains to be seen.

I thought I would have negative feelings about the residents we met in Bombay Beach and Slab City, but I don’t. What I felt was compassion.

Off the Grid: Bombay Beach

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Me Photographing Bombay Beach TV

You cannot find a more low-down community in the United States. Literally. That’s because the unincorporated town of Bombay Beach is 223 feet (68 meters) below sea level. It used to be larger, but each successive census has shown a drop in population, in 2020 down to 231. And that number is a little dicey because of the large number of snowbirds who winter there.

In 1999, Huell Howser did an episode of his show “Visiting” in a Bombay Beach which is hardly recognizable today. Back then most of the residents appeared to be senior citizens. At some point since then, the hipsters moved in, and the whole place became something of an art installation.

As such, it’s a fun place to visit. My bother and I spent a couple hours there last Saturday.

Art Installation in Bombay Beach

The beach itself is no beauty. At times, the town of Bombay Beach floods when the sea, which has no outlet, rises in an unusually wet year. Part of the town is now isolated from the beach by a protective berm. In any case, the sea frequently smells bad because of all the fish die-offs. In fact, the Huell Howser video shows him walking noisily on the bones of dead fish that line the shore.

Art Along the Beach

Many of the current residents of the town are living off the grid, using solar panels to provide electricity. There is water service provided by the Coachella Valley Water District. I rather doubt that sewage is piped out of town, as the next populated place is Niland, California, some 18 miles (29 kilometers) south. There is no gas station in town, and only one bar/restaurant and possibly one convenience store.

Beginning tomorrow, we will visit a place that is really off the grid.