INDIAN HILL

I’m driving on I-15 from Victorville toward Barstow, starting up the old road past the faded gray quarry and the railroad track where the bin cars wait for gravel to roll into the cars.   Immense, gray tall structures with conveyer belts intertwined in a labyrinth of intersecting ramps and the railroad track filled with an outbound waiting to load.  It is an imposing structure and I like it.  The light is dusty and thin and not good for shooting photos, and I turn westbound up through the edge of town, past vast wrecking yards filled with flattened dead autos and up past the logistics airport.    The road turns into Highway 395 and I move north up to Kramer Junction, and then turn off the main road into Randsburg.  It’s a dusty faded squatting town filled with backyards of junk and plywood sheds, a few main streets intersecting but no interesting restaurants, cafes, but only a couple of motels with cracking paint blistering in the desert heat.  ...

I take winter in moderation. Years living in Wyoming and Colorado gave me an honest perspective about seasons.  I don’t need ice and sub-zero temps now, but I do like a little snow, rain, stormy late afternoons and driving back roads like Route 66.  Up near Wrightwood, past the crest before the road winds down to Phelan, snow was a foot deep and clouds rolled in at the end of the storm.

          Cool wind came over the desert and it rustled the chaparral.  I couldn’t see or move.  In the small of my back I felt a gentle push and heard soft words in Spanish, and I moved in the direction she urged.  A coyote howled once, twice, sang his yip-yip-yeeees and a wet compress touched my wound like cactus brushing ragged naked flesh.       Air calm, the red pain gone now, my felt skin warm, her hands like the gentle lapping of soothing Caribbean waters and I seemed to drift in its swell.       “Your hand feels good,” I said.      “I am not touching you, Senor. ”      “What is it then?”      “You will be better.  Stay there.”  She put a blanket over me and sat down.      Coyotes packs not far off sang heavenly prayers and howled to the creatures they conquered in harmonie...

      I am lonely.   The only words today so far came from the Norm’s waitress. ‘Good morning, how are you?’ .  I order pancakes and sausage and she asks ‘Link, or country?’   The food is good and the heavy young waitress who tousled my hair a few weeks ago says ‘Hi’ when I’m leaving and I say ‘How are you doing?’ .        The cashier inquires, ‘How was everything?’ and assures me I gave her a twenty when I fumble through my wallet after giving her a two dollar discount coupon.  She counts the change that she puts in my hand.      Over at Big 5 the clerk in the shoe section asks ‘Can I help you with anything?’ and I point to a pair of Saucony shoes I’m wearing and point then to the top row where a similar pair is on display.      ‘ Other colors?’ I ask. He says, ‘No. They’re on sale, $44.95. These Nikes …’ and I stop him, telling him I’m usually not happy with sho...

Stigma, Juan and the boys have a new installation on the wall in Pomona. I go by there every few months to see what they're up to. This morning, I came across remarkable new large-scale art on the wall next to the auto wrecking yard, south of the railroad tracks.    The wall is close to a hundred yards long, eight or nine feet high, completely covered in vibrant, striking art that is alive and ever-changing.  Anyone can stop by, the open-air gallery is on the street.  I was talking with a friend the other evening about art, scale, and the difference in what you see in art book reproductions of Masters from the Renaissance, the modernists, impressionists and abstract impressionists. What is lacking in the book prints is scale.        The works are seven and eight feet high, fifteen feet long. See them up close and you can inspect the level of detail, see how the artist has to stand back frequently to get proportion and perspective...

  In 1997 , Hard Eight brought a fresh look to film noir with rich lighting, crisp dialog, a classic femme fatale and wonderful acting with Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow. And Samuel L. Jackson, doing what he does best.    I almost forgot how beautiful the interior shooting is until I watched this scene again on YouTube.  Philip Baker Hall, the fixer, walks through a casino in a long tracking shot past neon striped bars, below the blinking lights, gliding past regulars locked into crap tables and roulette wheels. Hall strips down his work to simple actions, patting his lapel after buttoning his coat, his stride and confidence underscoring a feeling of danger and the perils of a casino night.    The music, a clean shimmering vibraphone.    No dialog. Hall takes us there.    I want a drink, a cigarette, and Gwyneth Paltrow to serve it to me.   Noir is inevitability, demons forcing bad choice...

     Fong’s was a low-slung outpost on the eastern edge of Pomona, one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in town.  Santa Ana winds and the blistering summer sun had weathered its red and black paint.  Fong’s neighbors, a plumbing supply yard and a used truck-radiator shop, shared a gravel driveway that led away from a pot-holed street.         The door opened into a mist of fried sesame oil and soy sauce and a clamor of tea cups, Asian cooks banging woks with metal spatulas behind an old Formica counter that ran across the front of the room.  I sat at the counter next to a man who slurped hot and sour soup from a bowl without a spoon.  A woman on the other side of me pulled open a fortune cookie then smashed it on the small white plate upon which it had arrived.       A red vinyl-backed menu covered in clear plastic had two pages; Lunch, and Dinner that started at 4:30 PM.  A man put a s...