Slab City: That last lawless place in the U.S.?

Actors Emile Hirsch and Kristen Stewart talk about shooting their duet scene at "The Slabs" for the 2007 movie Into the Wild.  The movie, based on a John Krakaur book, is about Christopher McCandless, an smart student and athlete, who wandered away from society seeking his own answers, and eventually died in Alaska.  This scene was actually shot at Slab City.

I was talking to a friend who's into off road racing trucks, about this blog.  I said something like, "You go out to Ocotillo, right?  Have you ever been out to the big metal sculptures at Borrego Springs?" He said he had, and I told him I wrote a blog post about those.  We got talking about the Southern California desert, and I told him about the legends of the ship in desert.  He hadn't heard that legend, but it sounded interesting.  Then he said, "and there's that lawless place out there, too, by the Salton Sea."  I wasn't sure what he was talking about.  Then it clicked, "Slab City?"  He said that was the place.  That seems to be the way people think of Slab City, those who have heard of it, or maybe visited it, it's "that lawless place."  

Slab City got its name because there are a whole bunch of concrete slabs out there, making nive flat places to park a camper, or built your own house of some sort in a place no one really cares about.  At least most of the time.  The slabs are the remnants of a retired Marine Corps camp's gunnery range.

I first heard about Slab City in the movie Into the Wild.  I later read the book, and it stuck in my mind.  I was working as a taxi driver in Orange County in 2007, and once or twice a week I'd go see a movie in the early afternoon, as much to escape the heat as to watch any particular movie.  Into the Wild was one of the most fascinating movies I saw back then.  

I was living in my taxi, working 7 days a week, 16-18 hours most days, just struggling to pay my $550 a week taxi lease.  The idea of wandering off into the wild sounded pretty good at the time.  The taxi business was going downhill, due to the computer dispatching system, which allowed taxi companies to put far too many cabs on the road for the amount of business that existed.  

On Thanksgiving weekend, 2007, I finally hit the point where I wasn't going to make my lease by the next Monday.  Totally burnt out, grossly overweight, and not sure what to do with my life, I decided to take a drive that Sunday morning.  My goal was to find Slab City, just to check the place out.  I didn't work that Saturday night, I felt kind of sick.  So I woke up about 4:00 am.  I headed south on the 5 freeway, and then east on route 78.  Around dawn, I pulled off in a little area in the Anzo Borrego State Park, and took a short hike on a trail there.  I got back in my cab, and headed east, until I hit route 86, on the west side of the Salton Sea, California's largest lake, and one of the craziest stories in the state.  But that's a tale for another day.

I had a computer in the pawn shop, that I bought just to edit video with, but I never got on the internet then, so I had no idea exactly where Slab City was, I just knew it was somehwere near the Salton Sea, which is like 30 miles long.  I drove north, got some breakfast near a casino, and asked a couple people where Slab City was.  I went out to the edge of the once popular, now dying Salton Sea, where the bones of millions of dead fish scatter the shore.  I headed south, taking tips from a local, but never found Slab City.  It was getting hot out, so I headed back up to Orange County.  

The next morning I dropped off my taxi at the company, simply dropped the keys at the window, and walked away with my small backpack and about $15.  My health was so bad, after three bouts of cellulitis in my legs that year, that I didn't expect to live more than a few weeks on the street.  I wound up living on the streets of Orange County for nearly a year.  

I've still never been to Slab City. I saw a cool TV show where some skaters went out there and built a mini skatepark, and skated for a few days.  There are several videos on YouTube about the place, I'll link some below.  

The basic story is that the place was built as Camp Dunlap, a Marine Corps training base in 1942, during World War II.  It was functional and used for three years, then dropped down to a skeleton crew.  According to Wikipedia, the big area of concrete slabs was part of the artillery range.  When it was abandoned, a few drifters set up camp there.  A few more came along, and it became a squatters community of people moving in and out, including many snowbirds from northern areas, coming in the winter.  The Department of Defense gave the land to the state of California in 1961 officially.  

Slab City is pretty close to the middle of fucking nowhere, which is a great place to go if you want to "get away from it all."  It's east of the southern end of the Salton Sea, off route 111, near Niland.  It's in Imperial county, part of the Sonoran desert, and temperatures can reach a toasty 122 degrees F in the summer.  

It's generally seen as a place where the government didn't care about, so people could live  cheap with basically no laws.  Anarchy in the desert.  Since I've found it interesting, but never been there, I'll let the people from Slab City tell their stories, in the links below.  I also recommend the movie Into the Wild, and The Salton Sea (which is about meth,so MAJOR trigger alert if you're a recovering tweeker).

Last Free Place in America (52 minutes)

Inside Slab City (from Vice- 22 minutes)

Lawless Slab City (The Roi's VLOG 21 minutes)

The Real Local resident of Slab City (2021- 37 minutes)

Exploring East Jesus- Slab City (12 minutes)

Salvation Mountain (9 minutes)

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Crazy California 43's Guide to Huntington Beach

The Huntington Beach Pier at dusk.  #steveemigphotos

Huntington Beach was an oil well filled, mellow surf town, with the only long stretch of wide open beach in SoCal, when I moved there in 1987.  As many cities struggled for a variety or reasons, H.B. kept growing and getting more and more built up and developed.  Most of the old oil pumps have been taken down, and the wells capped, and it's a bustling beach town for trendy people now.  But it hasn't totally forgotten its action sports roots.  Since I live din H.B. for the better part of 20 years, several of the early posts in this blog are locations in Huntington Beach, starting with the iconic pier.  Here are links to my posts about H.B., more posts will be added as time goes on.

Classic Surf Spot: The Huntington Beach Pier

Classic Skate Spot: The Huntington Beach Pier

Classic BMX Spot: The Huntington Beach Pier

The Ashtray: the tiny skatepark that made all public skateparks in California possible 

Lloyd Wright's tombstone... for an idea 

 Huntington Beach jail cells from the 1920's

Classic BMX Spot: Sheep Hills  (OK, technically Costa Mesa, but it's on the border) 

Classic BMX Spot: The Old Surf Theater parking lot 

Classic BMX Spot: The Blues Brothers Wall 

The Duke Kahanamoku statue in front of Huntington Surf & Sport, on the corner of PCH and Main in downtown Huntington Beach.  #steveemigphotos

 

 

The original Wahoo's Fish Taco in Costa Mesa

The first Wahoo's Fish Taco, at 1862 Placentia, in Costa Mesa, California.  #steveemigphotos

I first heard of Wahoo's Fish Taco restaurant in 1988, right after this first one opened.  I was working at Unreel Productions, the video company owned by Vision Skateboards at the time.  Skateboarding was reaching the peak of its third wave of popularity, and Vision Skateboards and Vision Street Wear clothes were selling like crazy.  A lot of really talented young people were working at the various Vision businesses, spread around several buildings, and anchored by the Vision main office at 17th and Whittier in Costa Mesa.  This first Wahoo's above was a few blocks from the Vision buildings, and as soon as it opened, Vision workers started hanging out there after work.  

Right after it opened, someone came by Unreel from Vision, and told me I should come hang at Wahoo's after work.  I've never been a big seafood person, and fish tacos seemed weird to me then.  I was totally wrong about that, their fish tacos are great.  But it took me a decade to figure that out.  I never went to Wahoo's to hang with the Vision crew people.  My loss.

Inside the original Wahoo's Fish Taco on Placentia, in Costa Mesa today.  #steveemigphotos

So I finally visited this first Wahoo's restaurant last week, intending to meet a friend from Norway, and a few others, in town for the X-Games.  From the start, Wahoo's have taken the Baja California fisherman's meal, based on fresh caught fish in tacos and rice, and blended it with a hardcore action sports world vibe.  The walls and ceilings of Wahoo's are covered in surfboards, skateboards, BMX bikes, photos, posters, stickers, and artwork form surfing, skateboarding, BMX, and other action sports.  They have that "chillin' by the beach when the waves are flat" vibe.  Casual, fun, and hanging with friends and good food before or after going riding, skating, surfing, or snowboarding.  

Vintage Vision Psycho Stick skateboard on the wall of the Costa Mesa Wahoo's.  Few people know (or remember), that Psycho Man, the guy on this skateboard, was a real person who worked in the Vision Skateboards Art department in the late 1980's.  He was actually a cool guy, I met him a couple of times.  But he had a crazy style, and unique look, so they put him on a skateboard which turned into a hot seller.  #steveemigphotos

In more recent times, the last couple of years, I learned that old BMX freestyle friend, Ron Camero, a former Vision freestyler, is the guy who decorates all the Wahoo's restaurants.  He contacted me when he saw some of my BMX Sharpie Scribble Style drawings, and wound up buying several to put up at different Wahoo's restaurants.  There are none in the original Wahoo's, but my drawings now hang in several other Wahoo's.  

Here's one of my Hugo Gonzalez prints, in the Wahoo's in Los Alamitos, I believe.  

You can also find my Sharpie art on the walls of Wahoo's in Torrance, the Long Beach Marketplace restaurant, San Clemente, and Las Vegas, I believe.  So a huge thanks to Ron  Camero to adding my drawings to the walls of the coolest taco place in and around Southern California.  The food is good, the beer is cold, and there's a laid back, fun vibe to every Wahoo's.  If you are into any of the action sports, or just like tacos (that's pretty much everybody, right?), you need to check out a Wahoo's Fish Taco. Yeah, I'm overselling it, and believe it or not, this is NOT a paid post.  I'm just stoked to have some of my art up at Wahoo's around the region.  

One of my Krys Dauchy drawings up at a Wahoo's.  Photo: Ron Camero

Dave Vanderspek/Curb Dogs drawing up at a Wahoo's.  Photo by Ron Camero.

Another Hugo Gonzalez drawing, up at a Wahoo's (top left).  Photo by Ron Camero. #sharpiescribblestyle

Disclosure:  Yes, I've sold several drawings to be hung in Wahoo's Fish Taco restaurants, several months ago.  There was no deal for me to write a blog post in exchange for those sales.  When I visited the first Wahoo's last week, I snapped some pics, and decided to do a blog post. 

"Stay Gold" (from The Outsiders) mural in Sherman Oaks

One of the cult classic movies for Generation X people, like myself, the 1983 movie The Outsiders is known for several scenes, but the standout is Ponyboy and Johnny's "Nothing gold can stay" scene, which you can see here.  This is a close-up of a mural on the side of Floyd's barbershop, at 13601 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley.  #steveemigphotos

The Outsiders is also remembered for giving most people their first look at several soon-to-be major actors of that generation.  C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, and Patrick Swayze all appear in major roles.  Until doing reserach for this post, I didn't realize that Tom Cruise, Diane Lane, Leif Garrett, Tom Waits, and a very young Sophia Coppola (Francis Ford Coppola's daughter and Spike Jonze' ex) are also in the movie.  Imagine the budget it would take to get that cast in a movie today.  #steveemigphotos

The thing I love about this shot is that shadow line when I took it, sort of visually reinforcing the dark side of the social spectrum, Patrick Swayze leading the Greasers, and the popular kids, in the light, the Soc'es (Soshes?).  Here's the classic rumble scene from the movie.  #steveemigphotos

Here's the mural from the other angle.  #steveemigphotos
 

The Iliad Bookshop in North Hollywood

I like big books, and I cannot lie...  The exterior of Iliad Bookshop in North Hollywood.  #steveemigphotos

If you are a serious reader, and particularly one interested in movies, TV, film history, acting, photography, or the arts in general, Iliad Bookshop, in North Hollywood, is a place you must get to.  I've been a big reader since I learned to read, way back in the dark ages, and loved going with my dad to used book shops to wander among the stacks, and find that one perfect book for that time in my life.  Or maybe 10 perfect books.  

When I first moved to North Hollywood in 1991, after stumbling into the mainstream TV/video production world, I found Iliad at its former location, right on the X-shaped intersection of Vineland, Lankershim, and Camarillo streets.  Odyssey Video rental store was next to it then, a big yellow building.  That's where the name came from, a little literary joke, the used bookshop next to Odyssey must be named Iliad, right?  The owners thought so.  

If you're a book geek like me, you might also believe heaven (if there is one), looks something like this.  Until we get there, there's Iliad Bookshop to check out.  Floor to ceiling shelves of books.  Everything you see in this photo is part of the movie/film section.  #steveemigphotos.

Iliad Bookshop has moved from that original location, and is now located at 5400 Cahuenga Blvd., in North Hollywood, the cross street is Chandler.  If you're a bike rider, you can actually take the Chandler Bikeway from the Red Line train station in North Hollywood straight to Iliad, and save some gas.  I actually walked there from the train station, and I'm fat.  It's less than a mile walk.  

Iliad is home to two cats, Zeus and Apollo, who have a fan club of their own, people come in just to see the cats.  So leave your service rhinoceros or service llama at home, service dogs only, if needed.  Iliad is also home to about 150,000 used books.  Real, paper books.  You can wander the stacks, and find books on almost any subject.  Their sections of books on movies, TV, acting, dance, music, art, and photography are ginormous, the biggest selection of these subjects that I've ever seen in any used book store. There's a huge selection of novels, and tons of graphic novels.  Most every standard subject is represented, except business oriented books.  If you're looking for epic used paperback novels, they have tons.  I walked away with Robert Heinlein's Sci-Fi classic, Stranger in a Strange Land, on this trip, which is almost impossible to find in a used bookstore these days.  

Iliad Bookshop sits on the corner of Cahuenga and Chandler in NoHo, and the blue background, street facing walls, are covered in murals of dozens of literary legends, and famous scenes from books, plus the huge books in the top photo.  #steveemigphotos

If you're a book lover or avid reader anywhere in Southern California, you need to put a trip to Iliad Bookshop on your reader bucket list.  In addition to the huge selection inside, there are almost always boxes of donated books, available for free, outside the main door, which is in the parking lot.  I found a copy of Dan Brown's Angels & Demons on this trip, in the free boxes.  These are the donated books not needed in the store itself.  So if you like to read, are looking for that hard to find book, or just want to wander the huge stacks of a real, old fashioned used bookshop of epic proportions, head to Iliad Bookshop.  I might see you there.

The wild parrots of California

This is the only major documentary I've seen about parrots in California, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.  It's a 2004 documentary, and is available to stream on YouTube, and probably elsewhere.  Telegraph Hill is in the northeast part of San Francisco, about 1/4 mile north of the financial district.  

San Francisco.  San Diego. Tustin.  Santa Ana.  Orange.  Garden Grove.  Studio City.  Pasadena.  Glendale.  Belmont Shore area in Long Beach.  If you're into animals and wildlife, you known parrots are largely known as jungle species.  They are not native to California.  But there are flocks of wild parrots living in all these areas in California, and probably several more.  This is something I think most Californians aren't aware of.   According to the California Parrot Project website, there are actually 13 species of parrots, several of them parakeets, that are now living wild in California, mostly Southern California.  They have good photos and ID guides to identify the parrots, and a reporting link, if you want to report parrots you have actually seen. 

 My experience with parrots in California began more than 20 years ago.  I was a furniture mover in 1997 or 1998, when we got a job moving a woman who lived in Tustin, in inland Orange County.  I remember she lived just east of the 55 and 5 freeway interchange, on the edge of Santa Ana.  As we were getting the truck nearly packed, she and her friends walked out.  "Oh, the parrots are here," one of them said.   "You have a parrot?" one of us asked, not fully understanding her. "No there's a flock of wild green parrots that live around here," she replied.  

The women pointed to a nearby tree.  As we looked, we realized that was where all the squawking was coming from, which we had largely ignored.  "There are about 35 or 40 in the flock," our customer said, "they come around here pretty often."  That was the first I heard of wild parrots living in Southern California.  We watched them for a couple of minutes, then headed off in our truck.  

To me parrots had always been one of those weird tropical jungle birds, seen only as pets, in zoos, or in wildlife documentaries on TV.  So it was cool to stand there and see a flock of wild parrots in real life.  They were green parrots, that's about all I could tell at the time. 

A few years later, working as a taxi driver, I used to go see 2 or 3 movies a week in the afternoons, when the taxi business was dead, and it was hot sitting in my cab.  In 2004, I saw the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, about a flock of wild parrots in San Francisco.  The clip above is from that doc.  It was fascinating, and obviously, reminded me of the flock of parrots I had seen in Tustin a few years before.  Yesterday, as I write this, as I was writing about the urban coyotes in L.A., the wild parrots came to mind.  I looked up to see if there were any YouTube videos of the parrots.  There are several videos about parrots on YouTube, and you can find places to stream the documentary.  Mark Bittner, the man talking in the clip above, also has a book out, The Parrots of Telegraph Hill: a love story... with wings. (not a paid link).  So there is quite a bit of documentation and written work about the wild parrots in San Francisco.  The web says there are about 300 parrots in the Telegraph Hill area of San Francisco these days. 

But there's much less documentation of the wild parrots in Southern California, and there are probably as many, or more in SoCal, in three or four main areas.  I've personally seen wild parrots in Tustin, Santa Ana, Orange, and Garden Grove in Orange County, and the Studio City/North Hollywood area in The San Fernando Valley.  Last year, while waiting for a bus at the Tustin Metrolink station, I saw about 60-80 parrots flyover, in small groups, heading towards the Santa Ana area to roost for the night, apparently.  A woman there said that near the courthouse in downtown Santa Ana "There are hundreds" of of parrots," in the evenings.  

One time in 2008, waiting at a bus stop by Santa Ana City College, at the corner 17th and Bristol streets, I saw maybe 30-40 or more parrots.  But they weren't just chilling in the trees.  They were fighting a similar number of crows over the fruit of these trees growing on the edge of 17th.  Seriously, it was like a parrots versus crows gang fight.  They were flying all over the place, challenging and nearly hitting each other mid air.  I had both crows and parrots fly within a foot of my head during the melee.  I finally backed away from the bus stop, it was so crazy.  I've never seen anything like it, before or since.  

I've also seen small groups, and a flock of about 22 parrots once, in the Studio City/Universal Studios area.  I've seen them a handful of times over the last year or so, and they seemed to be going to trees near the Universal Studios Hilton and Sheraton hotels, right along the 101 freeway.  Doing a bit of research for this post, I saw there are YouTube videos of wild parrots in the Pasadena and Glendale area, so those may be the parrots I've seen here in Studio City. 

I also saw there are quite a few parrots living in the San Diego area, in videos and reports online.  So that's at least four main groups of parrots, and probably more in those areas.  A friend on Facebook just responded to this post, and said he's seen some in the Belmont Shores area, on the north end of Long Beach, as well.  So that's wild parrots in San Francisco, Pasadena, Tustin/Santa Ana, Long Beach, and San Diego.  These are all introduced species, which means that their living here may screw up the lives of endemic species of birds, and other animals and trees or plants.  But they are here, in several different locations.  If you like birds, wildlife, or parrots in general, here are a few videos to give you an idea of where to try and find them in person.  Also, check out the California Parrot Project website, it has a ton more info, and great photos of all the known species in California.  

Mark Bittner speaking at the San Francisco Public Library about the Telegraph Hill parrots

L.A. Parrot invasion video 

Mystery of the Pasadena Parrots

Why are there parrots in Southern California

Orange County parrots 

Wild Parrots of San Diego 

How the wild parrots of San Diego arrived in America's finest city (news article/video) 

Urban coyotes in Southern California

In this scene from the movie Collateral (2004), Jamie Foxx is a taxi driver in Los Angeles, and he gets a passenger, Tom Cruise, for a long ride with several stops.  As the movie unfolds, Jamie's character realizes Tom's character is an assassin, who he's driving around to murder people.  Late at night, in this quiet scene, when they're driving near downtown L.A., they see a coyote cross the quiet street in front of them.  This turns out to be the crux of the movie, the moment when Jamie's character decides to fight back in the way he can.  Pretty cool movie.  And yes, there are plenty of urban coyotes in Los Angeles county, Orange County and other urban and suburban cities.  

 As a taxi driver when I saw the movie Collateral, I loved that coyote scene.  Spending several years driving around Orange County at night, I had seen coyotes while driving my taxi, and I saw them a couple of more times afterwards.  You generally see them wandering around at night, roaming around, most likely looking for food.  One time a coyote crossed the road in front of my taxi, while I was driving up Goldenwest in Huntington Beach, I had a passenger in my cab, and  it was this quiet moment, almost like the scene above.  

Altogether, I've seen coyotes in Southern California probably 25-30 times.  Usually I've seen a single one, but I've seen a pair in the San Fernando Valley, four at once on the Bolsa Chica Mesa on the north end of Huntington Beach, and six once in a field, from the window of a bus, in Yorba Linda.  Generally, they look much like small wolves, with thick hair, making their 25-30 pound bodies look bigger than they really are.  I saw this one below this morning, feeding on some chicken pieces if pulled from a trash can, in Studio City/North Hollywood area.

Coyote in the city, at the edge of Studio City, North Hollywood, and the Cahuenga pass..  #steveemigphotos

One of the most adaptable predators, when it comes to cities and human dominated environments, coyotes thrive in cites, as strange as that seems to most people.  We tend to think of packs of wolves way out in the wilderness, and many people see coyotes as little wolves.  Coyotes may dig through trash and scavenge for food, but they also eat a lot of rodents, like mice, rats, gophers, and ground squirrels.  Generally speaking, they are afraid of humans, and want to keep their distance.  If you see one, and get freaked out, clap your hands, make some noise, and it will probably run off fairly quickly.  

If you want to learn more about coyotes in urban environments, this video below, from Toronto, is a good start, and it's only about 8 1/2 minutes long. 

We have Josh Gates for the really crazy adventures... and I'm glad

Highlights from Josh Gates and the Destination Truth crew.  OK, I never saw this show, I know his work from the Expedition Unknown show of recent years.  He's an actual archeologist, and goes  in search of all kinds of interesting mysteries.  And into caves.  He winds up in a lot of gnarly caves for some reason

This blog, Crazy California 43, is about going on adventures. Little adventures.  Things pretty much anyone in California can do.  Hey, here's a cool place to take a selfie.  Hey, here's a weird thing you and your friends or family can go check out.  Hey, here's a mystery in California that no one has solved yet, you want to take a crack at it?  That kind of stuff.  

The idea of this blog is to get people looking a little deeper into the cool, weird, funny, and historical stuff all around us... here in California.  And if you're not in California, check out your own area.  That's where the love of adventure comes from, checking out local things you've always wondered about.  Exploring where you are, and then moving out from there.  If it's something that catches you, keep going and find some place to go explore that you've been wondering about.  Think of this blog as "Introduction to Exploratory Adventures 101."  It's a place to start thinking about the weird and mysterious around you, and see where that leads.  

Then there's people like Josh Gates and his intrepid crew.  Josh is a real archeologist.  He will travel the globe and go to really dangerous places to seek out the truth of some historical mystery.  And he winds up in a lot of caves.  A lot of caves for some reason.  I guess because caves are great places to hide away things for centuries.  

I got turned on to weird mysteries of the world as a kid in the 1970's from paperback books on odd subjects, and the one TV show we had back then that explored the weird, In Search Of... with Leonard Nimoy.  Those shows helped inspire us Generation X kids to wonder about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, the Bermuda Triangle, the Nazca Lines, and other mysteries that were on the fringe back then.  

Since those days, 45 or so years ago, dozens of TV shows, some movies, and thousands of magazines, blogs, and YouTube videos, have looked into the weird and unexplained mysteries of our world. But most of them never find the answer, and after the early shows, few break really new ground. It's become the same shows over and over again, for many of these mysteries.

One thing I love about Josh Gates and Expedition Unknown, is that they pretty much always find some new info, some answers, to the mysteries they track down.  Josh is pretty crazy, he and the whole crew go through some serious ordeals to shoot these shows, and he's got a sarcastic sense of humor, as host, that adds to the entertainment value of the shows.  While they might not find the ultimate answer to many of these mysteries, they always seem to find something that was previously unknown, they take us, as viewers, into a better understanding of whatever the mystery is, and closer to the final answer to it.  

So I highly recommend checking out episodes of Expedition Unknown, and their sister show about paranormal mysteries, Expedition X. Some are on YouTube or streaming now, and new ones will come.  

As for your own life, this blog is here to spark your own desire to get out and check out a few California sites, mysteries, and do a little low level exploring of your own.  You 'll never see me wandering through the jungle and then rappelling into a cenote', to go cave diving for Mayan relics.  After spending about 5 years living in my cab as a taxi driver, and then being homeless for quite a while, I love real bathrooms way to much to go on that kind of crazy trek.  I'll leave that crazy shit (pun intended) to the Expedition Unknown crew.  My job here is to show you there are weird and mysterious places all around us.  Places the rest of us can explore.

There are plenty of weird places and mysteries here in California to keep me busy blogging for years.  Scroll down the blog post list (on the right on a laptop screen), see what sounds interesting, check out the post.  If the place seems really interesting, go check it out.  Maybe this winds up a little day trip once a month, or maybe you'll get really into hardcore exploring, and turn into a Josh Gates type person for a new generation, some day.  More likely, somewhere in between.  Follow your own interests, go explore stuff, and have some fun. You never known where a little adventure might ultimately lead.

I'll end with two little known facts I've learned about Josh Gates from his shows.  1) He once worked as a waiter at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.   2) He's a huge fan of The Goonies.  That might help explain his crazy adventures.  Alright check out those shows, and go explore something for yourself. 

 

San Fernando Valley landmark: Hand Car Wash

 Advertising from a different time.  The vintage Corvette atop the huge hand at Hand Car Wash, at 11514 Ventura Blvd., in Studio City.  #steveemigphotos

There was a time, 50-60 years ago, when business owners built ridiculous things to get the attention of people driving by.  Roadside attractions, roadside landmarks, whatever you call them, there were lots of them across the U.S..  Whether it was on historic Route 66 across the country, or in your local town, weird and unusual sculptures became local landmarks.  

These days, the business bottom line and local codes and ordinances have pretty much ended this vintage type of advertising.  But in Studio City, Hand Car Wash still stands as one of those reminders of  the car culture and roadside landmarks of yesteryear.  It's still in business, packed on the weekends, and I figured it must have been in a few movies, as a back drop.  But I didn't find any, just this weird fight over the mural (originally done without a permit) on the back wall.  Either way, the big hand and the vintage Corvette are a San Fernando Valley icon, and reminder of advertising ideas long past.  I'm not sure how long it's been there, but it was here in the early 90's when I first worked up this area, and it wasn't new then. 

 

Forget Olympic diving, just watch this video... 5 backflips in a cliff jump

9 minutes ago I had no idea who Ryan Bean was.  Now I know he's what would have happened if Greg Louganis was born in Gen Z.  This is nuts.  

YouTube algorithm served this one up this morning, so thanks YouTube.  Let's start with the basics.  Quad means four, quint means five, and a gainer is when you jump forwards off something and do a backflip.  You probably knew all that, but I'm covering it just in case.  

Next, cliff jumping is ridiculously dangerous for a whole bunch of reasons.  Yeah, believe it or not, I did it, once.  My high school friends and I from Boise when to up to Lucky Peak reservoir once, had a kind of hike around, dudes picnic day, and found a cliff about 35 feet high that we all jumped off.  That's small by cliff diving standards, but enough to get the juices flowing for most people.  If you are going to jump off something high into water, first check out the water.  Make sure it's deep enough, there are no hidden rocks, logs, alligators, or those giant catfish that eat people on the River Monsters show.  Once you know you're landing make sure the take off isn't slippery or sandy.  A minor slip jumping off a high place can turn into a really bad day, like broken neck bad.  Best if you don't ever try shit like this. But I have a bunch of crazy people who read my blog, so take all needed precautions if you do.  Jump off some local high dives into a pool first.  There's a ton of impact even the 35 foot little cliff we jumped off in high school, and that was straight forward, feet first jumping.  Be smart if you're going to do something stupid.  

As you know by now, this blog is about cool, weird, and historic type locations in California.  Lucky for me, Emerald Pools, came up on a Google Maps search.  So this appears to be Emerald Pools hiking area in the Emigrant Pass area of East central California.  Basically, it's not far from I-80, west of Truckee and Lake Tahoe.  This place looks amazing, so it's definitely in the cool category of California locations.  Here's the website for Emerald Pools if you want to go hike it, it's a 7/10ths of a mile out and back hike.  

Ryan Bean is _ryan.bean_ on Instagram, and he has a YouTube channel as well.  This guy is nuts, and he obviously has years of some kind of gymnastics training at some point.  Seriously, just watch, don't try to imitate this guy. 

Another kind of ride out: Fort Bragg rail bikes

From the crew at California Through My Lens, here's a look at the Fort Bragg rail bikes tour through the redwoods.  This one is way up north, in Mendocino County.  

While writing a bike blog back in 2019, I stumbled into the concept of rail bikes.  There are a few places set up where you can rent rail bikes, like this one in Fort Bragg.  It's a one hour ride on railroad tracks also used by the Skunk Train, a railroad that's been in use since 1885.  Tickets are on sale right now, so they are up and running after the pandemic.  But tickets are $195 for two people, so it's a bit on the pricey side if you're on a tight budget.  If you're planning on a vacation up in NorCal, keep it in mind. The rail bikes are actually electric powered, so you don't really have to pedal.  E bikes (sort of) are springing up everywhere, it seems.  You can check out the info at their website here. 

There's another rail bike rental spot in the Sacramento area, here's their website.  The rentals there are $120 for two people, as of this writing.  

There's another type of rail biking, though.  In the more adventurous version, you find an old abandoned railroad, make sure it's still in decent shape, and that bridges aren't washed out or anything.  Then you build your own rail bike, and go on a tour.  This video below is one of those adventures.  It's four retired guys, old friends, who got together for a multi-day rail bike trek through Patagonia, Chile.  while it's not in California, I love this idea, and this video. 

A Multi-day rail bike trek through Patagonia, Chile shows you the more adventurous side of rail biking. 

San Fernando Valley landmarks: The Circus Liquor clown

If you haven't lived or spent time in the San Fernando Valley, you might be Clueless about Circus Liquor, and their big, neon lit, kinda creepy clown.  This liquor store has been a landmark since the 1960's.

Located at the corner of Vineland and Burbank (5600 Vineland) in North Hollywood, the original Circus Liquors, with the huge neon clown sign, is a San Fernando Valley icon.  I first saw this clown when I moved to the sketchiest place I've ever lived (way sketchier than the P.O.W. House, BMXers), a short bike ride up Vineland in 1991.  I actually cashed two or three of my first TV industry paychecks at Circus Liquor, because my bank didn't have branches nearby.  So I have a little bit of personal history with the kinda creepy clown.  

Not to be confused with Hollywood or West Hollywood, North Hollywood is an actual city, and it's in the East side of the San Fernando Valley, between Burbank and Studio City.  Those two cities are home to most of the actual TV and movie industry.  People outside this region don't know, but there's not actually much of the showbiz industry in Hollywood itself.  So Circus Liquor is in an area where the people  who make movies and TV shows wander through.  That's why it's been in movies, TV shows, commercials, and written up in newspapers, and now my blog. If you live in this area, you've probably bought something at Circus liquor at some point. Just yesterday I was flipping through Thrasher magazine, and saw this photo of the band Turnstile in a photo, under the Circus Liquor clown.

The band Turnstile, in front of the Circus Liquor clown, in Thrasher magazine, August 2021 issue.

Doing a quick lookup for this blog post, I found that Circus Liquor has a few locations now, and they sell liquor online and ship it, if you're over age 21, of course.  Here are three more clips featuring the Circus Liquor clown.  If you build it, they will come (and buy booze and smokes, or shoot movies). 

Debbie Harry kicks a thug's ass in Circus Liquor

Circus Liquor- Classic California Neon   

One Minute Study- Circus Liquor 

 I shot a couple photos of the clown in early 2020, long before I had the idea for this blog.  I was just going to put the pics up on Facebook.  Once I started this blog, it's been on my list to blog about, as one of those iconic signs, a landmark in the San Fernando Valley.  Fer shur.

The Circus Liquor clown in daylight.  #steveemigphotos

Huntington Beach jail cells from the 1920's

The single jail cell from the 1920's, in an alley off main street.  #steveemigphotos

 Back about 2006 or 2007, when I was driving a taxi in Huntington Beach, I made a big, thick, zine called The Very, Very Unofficial Guide to Huntington Beach.  Initially it started as a giveaway to a bunch of college age Irish kids who came to H.B. for the summer.  They lived in several houses and apartments, 8 or 10 people in each house, to keep rent cheap.  I met them by getting calls for taxi rides from the various houses.  They kept asking where different things were in and around H.B., so I decided to make them a little guide book.  As a longtime zine publisher, that seemed the cool way to do it.  It ended up being my most popular zine ever, and I gave away over 250 copies, making my money back in taxi rides.

As I listed the weird and fun things about H.B., I got more into it, and actually went to the library and looked up the history of Huntington Beach in local history books.  The town, originally called Pacific City, got going right around 1900.  But it stayed small, until oil was discovered in 1920, near where Huntington High School is today.  Suddenly H.B. became a little oil boom town.  While those old books didn't go into a lot of detail, it came across as a pretty rowdy town in the 1920's and into the 1930's.  Guys came to get rich, either finding an oil claim, or working on oil rigs of others.  The house I knew as the H.B. Hostel, on 7th or 8th Street, was called Hotel Evangeline back then, which sure sounds like the name of a brothel.  In any case, there was a lot of money to be made, and a lot of partying going on in Huntington Beach.

The three connected cells from the 1920's.  #steveemigphotos

One of the local history books described four jail cells, or overnight drunk tanks, that were in the alley behind the Longboard bar.  One was separate, and three were joined together.  So I drove my taxi back there, and, much to my surprise, they were still there.  

Built in the early 1920's to handle drunk and/or rowdy people downtown, these four cells were where the troublemakers of any given evening would end up.  So these are photos of the old jail cells, circa 1920's, now used as storage. If you got to hammered back then (during prohibition, not that that stopped anyone from drinking), the cops would hall you into one of these cells, and let you sleep it off overnight.  From what I read, it didn't sound like these were used for long stays in jail.  My guess is they'd throw a bucket of water on the guys in the morning, and let them stumble home.  In any case, these 100 year old jail cells are still standing in downtown H.B.  If you want to know more about these cells, and the history of the Longboard bar building, check out this episode of Hidden Huntington Beach by Chris Epting.  I discovered his videos while writing the Lloyd Wright tombstone post.  There's a little movie history bonus you learn if you watch his video. 

So there you go, a weird little piece of cool Huntington Beach history from 100 years ago, tucked among all the new hotels, restaurants, and shops that have reshaped downtown Huntington Beach over the last 20 years or so.

Here's a wider shot of all four cells, in the alley behind the Longboard.  #steveemigphotos