Colorado, Part I

For those who have been faithfully reading for more than a couple years. This post is a rewrite (not just a re-post) from my old MySpace blog “Diesel Fumes”

In the summer of 1976 I often accompanied my dad to his summer job at a nearby summer camp. We had a used Chevy van. It wasn't the cool '70s van you may be thinking of. This was a family van with windows all around and a sensible one-tone blue paint job. It was largely an empty shell with just the two front seats and a single bench behind, no interior treatments like paneling or carpet, no air conditioning, AM radio; no frills. My dad found it useful to haul lumber and things for his projects around the house.

My dad, my brother and I were busy that summer customizing the van for a particular purpose: a camper for what would be the most adventurous family vacation we had ever (or perhaps would ever) take.

We didn't have a lot of money for vacations and camping was what would make this possible, but we didn't have a lot of money to customize the van either, so my father's ingenious design was innovative, practical and economical.

The first thing we did was to take the bench seat out and remount it backwards using the same bolt holes. This caused the back of the bench seat to press up against the backs of the front seats. On the driver's side of the van my dad built a wooden bench that extended back from the edge of now backwards stock bench seat to just beyond the wheel well. We covered foam padding in cloth and vinyl cases for both the seat and the backrest.

On the opposite side, just aft of the sliding van door, my dad built a series of cubbyhole shelves—two levels of four. These square cubbys would contain a cardboard box for each member of the family and contain our clothes. The extra cubbies had boxes for toiletries and other storage. Under the benches was room for more storage of things like sleeping bags.

At the rear of the van was my dad's piece-de-resistance: the chuck wagon. It was a self-contained camping kitchen that took up the last 3 feet of the van. When camped, we simply opened the rear doors of the van and folded down a horizontal door that hung flat on a couple of chains to become a work area. If it was raining a tarp could be easily rigged over the open doors. Everything from the Coleman cooler and kerosene stove to the food stuffs, plates, cups and silverware was within easy reach in an efficient arrangement of shelves and cabinets. There was even a place for spices and the like. Off to one side of the chuck wagon was room to store the tent, tarp, some tools and other camping hardware.

I remember at the time being disappointed that the 'kitchen' he'd talked about was not inside the van. I had fantasies about making myself a sandwich anytime I wanted as we rolled down the highway.

On the inside of the van, with the addition of a foam mattress, the chuck wagon also doubled as a bed. Just in front of the chuck wagon my dad placed another short bench, the only seat in the rear that faced forward; one of the places I most liked to sit.

Between the benches and the cubbyholes was a table, that could be lowered and mattressed to form a bed that included the surrounding benches. The bed could sleep two adults and the chuckwagon, one child. The remaining two people slept in a tent.

I created this little illustration in Google Sketchup then added text in Photoshop

Curtains were added to all the windows with simple string curtain rods and a vent was installed in the roof .

I realized as I transcribed my journal that we actually installed the curtains later while on the road).

It was a camper!

I remember painting the interior elements (blue) while my dad taught woodcraft at 4H camp. I was a travel junky when I was a kid so I was dizzy with excitement for the biggest, longest journey we were about to embark on.

It had all started in my sixth grade class. Mr. Keller had asked us to pick a state and do a report on it. I had recently seen the whacky Disney comedy “Snowball Express” in which Dean Jones inherits a run-down ski resort in Colorado. So naturally, I picked Colorado.

I contacted the board of tourism for “Colorful Colorado” to request information. A week or so later the biggest fattest envelope ever to bear my own name was curled up in the mailbox. I had struck gold! The envelope was full of pamphlets, maps, information sheets, colorful pictures of mountains, people on horseback, skiing, climbing mountains...

 As memory serves, this was the exactvbrochure I got in the mail
(minus the URL added at the bottom of a site where one can buy other vintage Colorado stuff)

“That should give you plenty of material for your report.” My mother said.

Report? What report, I want to live there! Now!

My parent's had just read James Michener's “Centennial” which is a historic novel of Colorado and the region. My Mom's cousin Chuck lived in Colorado and there were college friends of my parent's scattered across the Midwest so my report and a rather thick novel turned into an adventure!

It was hard to believe it was real when our blue Chevy Van rolled out of our driveway and up our gravel road.

We were off!

Traveling in the van was the best! It was so novel to be rolling down the road while sitting at a table and doing puzzles, drawing pictures or writing in the journal my mom had us keep.

To get from the front seat to the back area, one would have to crawl over or under the bench seat or stop the car and enter through the sliding door. This was actually kind of a cool thing making the rear of the van a sort of no-adults allowed club house. One of my favorite places to be was on the Chuck wagon bed in the very back. I could lie down and still look out the windows with a high enough vantage point to look at cute girls my age in the backs of cars and almost look truckers in the eye when I made the 'pull-the-cord-honk-your-horn' gesture.

Unlike the first rendition of this story, this time I am going to post each humiliating page of my journal. Don't worry, you won't have to try to read it, I transcribed text following each with notes in italics. You can click on any of them to see them in their full embarrassing detail.

Sun aug 15, 1976
NY, Penn & Ohio

We are going through Bufulow (Buffalo) on the N.Y. State Thruway. Now we are crossing the switchyards. Boy, Buffalow stinks! We were, and still are, putting signs in the window that said -”Be happy” and stuff like that. I just saw some people riding a motorcycle, they had parked under a bridge and were putting on their wet suits (rain suits).

We are all happy.

We are going through Angola (New York) and are seeing a lot. We just went under a footbridge that had a roof on it.

My wife was thrilled reading this journal that she recognized and had walked on that very footbridge -there is a center island rest area on the New York State Thruway near Angola that the bridge leads to. Stopping there has been a tradition for she and I on all of our cross country treks.

I am seeing a lot of linences (license plates) like Ontario, Ohio, Washington, Florida and so on. We saw a camper that looks like a space vecal (vehicle)

I know now it was an Airsteam trailer I had seen.

Here comes a convoy of busus ware. (Honestly, I can't figure out what I meant by "ware". I remember that the song “Convoy” was a big hit that summer and CB radios were all the rage.) Passing by is a bunch of reel old and cool cars.

I am going to rest now. I will write when I get to Canton Ohio.

We spent the night with a college buddy of my father's in Canton. He had a son who was a few years older than I, who I liked a lot. He was quite intelligent and apparently tolerant of an eleven-year-old kid following him around. He had some cool science gear and taught me the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force. I would have liked to stay and learn more from him, but it was just an overnight stay and there were many miles still between us and Colorado. 

aug 16 '76

Ohio and Ind.

We had a good time at Majetch's (Majetich's) house and are on 30 West and our next stop is Indiana.

I have started a license plate collection and I've got a blue and white Ohio license plate.

Ohio is a very industrial state. There's lots of steel mills and factories and it smelled worse than Buffalow.

It is very quiet. Everyone is asleep except for Dad and I. We are coming to Ashland now and I'm getting a bit sleepy but I have to stay up and navagate so I thought I'd show you a map of the van.

Kinda neat huh? If you can understand it.

My dad drove most of the time. My mom would get frustrated trying to interpret the map the way he wanted, so she was glad to pass the job of navigator on to me. So I was the keeper of the maps and let my Dad know when that next turn/exit was coming. I loved maps and was very proud of my duty. I'm not sure if my parents meant it to be an esteem building exercise, but it sure was.

I took a nap and fell asleep listening to Matt (my brother) and Mom argue over navigating.

You see! Where would they have been without me?

Now Mom is driving and Dad is making curtains for the van since we were so busy fitting and filling up the van for the past few weeks.

I can't wait to get home because... The rest is scribbled out. It goes on to say how I am in love with a certain girl and when I hold it up to the light I can just make out who, Here, you try it. ;) 

We're going through Cincanaty (Cincinnati) Ohio.

aug 17 1976

Indiana, Ohio

We stopped in Indiana (in Evansville) for the night and had lots of fun. But I dread going to St. Louy (St. Louis) tonight . It is our longest and worst stop for there's a kid I hate named Danny Widdis.

We stayed with the “Wades” near Evansville (Southern) Indian—more college friends of my dad. They had a newly built house among a glade of tall trees. They had a boy my age, Eric and a girl a bit younger, Sonya (I'm making a guess at their names actually). Sonya and my sister Kelly, then almost six years old, became fast friends and my brother and I enjoyed hanging out with Eric. There was a lot of giggly flirtation between the girl and boy factions, the quasi-adversarial 'kooty' kind.

They spoke with deep Hoosiers accents,“ten” was “ta-in, and “help” also had two syllables “hey-elp”. As I listened to them talk I had a revelation.

“Do my brother and I talk funny to you?” I asked them both.

“Yoo shur doo!” they chorused.

Lesson learned.

My sister slept in Sonya's room and Eric spent the night in the van with Matt and I. It was our first time sleeping in the van (the table/bed in the lower position).

I did indeed dread seeing Danny, the son of yet another of my parents' college friends—my mom's this time, that lived in St. Louis. Danny was a jerk; there's no other (polite) way of putting it. They used to live closer, so I knew Danny and knew what was in store. Perhaps I shouldn't have prejudged our enjoyment, as we did have a pretty memorable time in St. Louis as it turned out, but then again; Danny the jerk did not disappoint.

On to Colorado Part II: https://joeltjohnson.blogspot.com/2011/08/colorado-part-ii.html

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I have been a bad boy and not rehearsed all week. I had it in my mind to rehearse later in the week then got called for some work the last two days of the week. The first was a thing for Conan O'Brien (no I didn't see him). The diet progresses well I am down 18 pounds after four weeks. I cheated on Sunday when I worked at Tennis Channel for 16 hours and left my own healthy food at home. I had a couple chocolate chip cookies (the only other thing available were Togo subs each with a minefield of mustard smeared on them--nope, I won't do mustard for anything!) and I had a meatball sandwich later when we ordered. I could have ordered a salad I know but after 12 hours that that point I was in dire need of protein! This week I have been on all fruits and veggies (and some nuts). The no-meat-no-dairy-no-wheat-no-sugar  thing I was on was tolerable but I can't wait to get back to it after a week of sticks and twigs. I'm sorry, I just can't get into vegetables, or even fruit on this level. My saving grace has been the smoothies my wife has been making for me. I dreamed I was eating a burrito the other night.

4H Camp

There are few feelings quite like the last day of school. To the kid mind, the next school year doesn't even exist until that first 'back to school' sale reared it's ugly head. But when you got off the bus that last time, summer stretched out before you as far as the eye could see.

We lived in the country so there weren't many musements. We had to invent our own fun. We hung out in our tree house, or rode our bikes around the immediate neighborhood (we lived halfway up a big hill so we couldn't go far without either having to push our bikes where we were going, or push them home). We played in and around the barn across the road and explored the woods and gulleys in our area. If it was hot enough, my mom might take us swimming down at the lake.

It was the '70s and there was nothing on TV during the day. We were only allowed one hour per day; The Brady Bunch, Emergency and shows like that got those golden sixty minutes. Hang around the house too much in general and my mother would put us to work, so we gladly stayed outdoors.

Boredom soon overcame us...

...and it was only day 3.

But please... no sympathy; it still wasn't school!

My dad worked at a 4H summer camp only a few miles away teaching woodworking.

I had gone to that 4H for a standard week long session when I was around eight. I didn't care for it. Even though we were doing supposedly fun stuff at camp, it kinda seemed like school to me... 24-7 school.

Going to 4H with my Dad was a different story. At school I was just another jerk who got picked last for dodge ball. At camp, as a “staff brat,” I was cool!

My dad would wake my brother and me up in the morning. We groggily got in the car (sometimes on the back my dad's motorcycle if it was just me) and drive a mere 4 miles down dirt roads, like our own. We pulled into the Ontario County 4H Camp and parked behind a simple brown building that was my dad's wood craft lodge. We walked straight to the large main lodge where there were two long lines, girls and boys. We passed the lines and entered unimpeded. The smell of bacon and pancakes woke me right up. We sat wherever we liked. The doors opened and the hoard of hungry sleepy campers poured into the lodge like batter onto a griddle.

Not just anything could get me out of bed that early in the summer. Their breakfasts were exceptional!

After breakfast my dad unlocked the pad lock on the sliding barn doors of the woodcraft lodge that overlooked the vast front lawn of the camp. I opened the all windows by pulling on a rope that lifted the hinged shutters up and secured the rope to a cleat. There were no screens so the summer breeze blew gently through the shop. The smell of the lumber along with the lives pines around the camp were the essence of summer to me.

Before long, a group of campers showed up and sat at the several tables while my dad went into his spiel about woodworking, safety and the projects they could build. The campers looked around at the tools and sample projects hanging on the wall. They may have wondered who that kid was sitting off to the side on one of the work tables like he owned the joint.

That's right mortal children, I'm cool!

It was at first amusing and eventually tedious to hear my dad repeat his speech every hour, every Monday every week of summer I may have even skipped a Monday or two for that reason, but every other day was a bit more fun.

My dad enjoyed it all. Teaching woodcraft a lot more satisfying than teaching high school. He loved working with wood and there were many things around our house both large and small which he had built, not to mention nearly doubling the size of the house itself. Unlike his high school students, the campers were, for the most part, happy to be there and motivated.

My dad had one or two guys assigned to work with him. Wayne was one teen-aged counselor whose first choice for what to do with his summer was definitely not woodcraft. My dad had to give him one task after another to keep him working or he would just stand around. He was was patient with him and by the end of the summer Wayne was able to work unsupervised. After a couple of years he became a motivated tour-de-force of woodcraft became one of my dads most valued assistants.

There were varying degrees of difficulty to the projects. First timers could select plaques; shapes like a horse or a chicken traced on to a square piece of quarter inch plywood, cut out on a scroll or jig saw, sanded and stained. There was a pig shaped cutting board.

The were the quintessential wood shop projects like a birdhouse, pencil holder and book ends but they were all designed to be completed in four days. Many of the projects my dad had inherited from his predecessor: 'Gramps'. Gramps was a 4H legend after teaching woodcraft for many years before retiring. He would visit occasionally and was quite a character with many stories to tell.

For the more advanced campers there were corner shelves, step stools, a toy car and truck and one my dad introduced: a “limber jack,” which was a Appalachian Mountain folk toy; a wood figure on a stick whose arms and legs dangled freely at the joints that appeared to 'dance' on a flexible stage as you tapped it with your hand.

A video showing a limberjack in action

One project existed almost as a joke: a “round tuit” which was small piece of plywood cut into a circle like a token and had the word “tuit” written on one or both sides. Whenever some put off a task by saying “when I get around to it” you handed them the round 'tuit'.

Four sessions of campers came every hour or so until one of my favorite parts of the day: lunch.

Breakfast was awesome at 4H Camp, but lunch was incredible. Again we, as staff, got to enter before the campers and sit where we pleased. The cooking staff was the same group of ladies that fed me during the school year (actually that was my mom, I almost always brown-bagged it), but they were allowed a better cuisine at camp it seemed. They baked fresh rolls every single day and the food was hot, tasty and worthy of a restaurant.

I can smell those warm rolls now!

After lunch was rest period. Often my dad would lie down on one of the work tables and meditate or nap, I would work quietly on whatever project I was building: this meant (hand) sanding, staining or finishing. Afterwords the campers were up and around doing whatever they did. My dad took lumber deliveries and cut the large pieces of wood on the radial arm saw into raw pieces for the projects. My brother and I swept up saw dust and cleaned up the woodcraft lodge. When we had time we would work more on our own projects; customized versions of the more advanced camper projects or things we had dreamed up ourselves.

Then we did what none of the campers could do: we went home.

I never felt jealous of the campers. Quite the opposite. To me it was the best of both Worlds. I went to camp, but I did what I pleased and no one picked on me like they normally did. I usually stuck close to the woodcraft lodge but occasionally I would take other 'classes' like boondoggle, art or photography.

When kids learned I was a 'staff brat' I could hardly help but rub it in a little.

“That's right when you're swatting mosquitoes, coughing on smoke from the camp fire, and sharing a stinky latrine with 50 other dudes and lying on that nasty mattress, I'll be watching TV, taking a hot shower in privacy and sleeping in my own bed.”

There was other fun I had with the campers. One summer I found a wounded bird and nursed it back to health. I kept the bird in my room perched on a tennis racket out over my dresser with some books weighing down the handle and some newspapers on the floor below. I never would have guess it would be such hard work. I spent most of my days digging up worms for my bird. I took it to camp with it perched on my finger in the car. When we arrived I placed it in the tree just outside the woodcraft lodge. A couple of unsuspecting campers by that very window and my trap was set.

“Yeah I kinda have this thing with animals you know; call it a gift.”

“You do not!”

“Sure I do. Okay, I'll prove it. See that robin up in that tree there?”

“Yeah.”

I went outside, climbed the tree, and speaking in soft bird whisperer tones I approached my bird. Naturally, she didn't fly away. To their further amazement, I stuck out my finger and she hopped on. I carefully climbed down the tree with the bird still on my finger.

Jaws hung open.

That's right, I'm cool.

I suppose there were things the campers had over me. For one thing it was hard to woo the girls from the woodcraft lodge (not many girls took wood craft—they always made the horse plaque) or from home in the more social hours of the evening.

Maybe it would be worth it to have another go at being an actual camper again. I signed up for a week of having to wait in line to eat, take off my 'staff brat' stripes for a spell to meet a lovely thing or two.

I had a much better time in camp as a preteen than I did as a kid. I liked the kids in my cabin, especially a guy named Bill Weirsma. He was one of the younger kids in the cabin but he kept everyone in stitches with his one liners and crazy stunts. His antics certainly cost us points in the cabin competition (an attempt to bribe us with candy to behave and keep the cabins neat) but it was totally worth it.

There was only one activity that was mandatory: Swimming lessons. I was already decent swimmer after an early career at the Canandaigua YMCA, but I never quite cottoned to swimming in general, especially first thing in the morning when my swim period was scheduled. I just didn't like being wet. Seeing the girls in their swim suits though took a lot of the sting of that cold early morning water.

There were a number of girls that I liked, a smaller handful that seemed to like me and there were one or two fit into both categories, but I never had a great camp romance. There are only a couple I can remember specifically. There was Diane from Geneva. After camp was over we had what I thought was a date at Roseland Park (the local amusement park) but she had other ideas. She brought along her high school friends who all smoked dope--a deal killer for me. Then there was Karen from Fairport. Karen was the one that got away; I really liked her but lost her address soon after camp. I suppose if I really really like her I wouldn't have lost it.

One of our counselors was a guy named Dave who was seemed to be the heart throb of every girl (and female counselor) in camp. Normally that would earn my contempt (jealousy) but Dave was actually a pretty cool guy.

Dave was one of the guys that ran the pioneer camping program. Each day we learned a new survival skill like starting a fire with and without matches, boiling water in a paper cup and how to spot poison ivy. On Thursday night we took our sleeping bags off our bunk, walked past the main lodge, shedding a tear that we were forgoing one of their delicious dinners and hiked to an area about a quarter mile from camp where we cooked our own dinner over an open fire and spent the night on the open ground in our sleeping bags. I had gone from my own bed, to a squeaky bunk to the cold hard ground. Their weren't many girls in pioneer camping either.

I lied on the ground in my green Coleman sleeping bag. It was pitch black. Sleeping bags were scattered about like bodies after a South American bus accident. I was having a hard time sleeping already; then it happened: a raccoon fight.

I know what you're thinking Raccoons? Those silent fuzzy comic creatures that wouldn't hurt a fly. If you've never heard a raccoon fight, it will change your whole perspective. They go from cute critters to bloodthirsty killers in a Quentin Tarantino movie. It's horrible! Especially from only a few yards away.

All the other kids improbably seemed to sleep through it while I cowered in my sleeping bag, cringing with each banshee-like battle scream and growl and hiss and... what the hell was that?!

I was certain that: A. They were rabid and, B. The winner of the fight was going to waddle from the dead body of his opponent, straight over to where I was lying and bite me in the face. Sure enough, a few minutes after the long horrific battle I felt something round and warm settle against my leg. I couldn't believe it. I froze with terror. I didn't move a muscle for over an hour hoping it would simply wake up and go away. Finally it did, and I could finally scratch that itch on my leg. I probably went to sleep eventually but it felt like I was up the whole night.

When I got up I carefully looked around and saw my demon raccoon. Some kid, still asleep, had rolled on the open ground during the night until his butt hit my leg.

The last day of camp was a competition between the cabins that involved all sorts of events. Somehow I got talked into a swimming race.

Great.

At the beginning of the race there was one trash talking guy who was already claiming victory. He could have it, I didn't care. All the boys in the race sort of decided the order we would finish, ranked by levels of bravado, even before we'd taken our marks. When we hit the water it occurred to me that the trash talker was an asshole and it would be nice to at least beat him. To my disbelief I came in a hair away from first place by the kid who ranked himself third. The trash talker who'd said he would be first was forth.

Against all probability I had fun as an ordinary camper, but being a 'staff brat' was a lot more fun. I have good memories of both.

Years later my friend Jim met a great singer who's band had just been hired away from him. We needed a singer, so we met to jam at my parents' house. The guy looked really familiar to me but I couldn't place him. My Dad could though. It was Dave, the heartthrob from 4H pioneer camping. We formed the band "Dark Heart Alarm" for several years. Dave and another guy from that first jam session are still at it: Dark Heart Alarm on Reverbnation.

There was one particular summer that my dad had a special project. When his woodcraft duties were complete he (I would work on it here and there throughout the day) would spend a little time each day customizing a '74 Chevy Van into a family camper that would take us on the single most adventurous vacation of our lives, but that's next weeks blog post: “Colorado, Part I”

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I don't have a key to the gate that leads to the place where I rehearse. I am one of a few people that use the place and I think there is only one or two gate keys. Unless I happen to find the gate left open, I have to jump up on a four foot wall, carefully navigate some cacti and sabre-like agava plants (wondering about the possibility of snakes during these warm months) and jump down another four foot wall. Rehearsals have been going really well though. Each time I jump the wall I notice I am making less mistakes and my voice is getting back to the shape it was in when I was recording. I do realize it's been over two weeks since I posted to my blog. Only the second time I've missed in nearly two years. I'm choosing to blame distraction by a recent bit of unrest in my life. Due to financial reason's of the company I contract with, I have been effectively laid-off my job on Jeopardy. Jeopardy is a part time job, but with my Tennis Channel hours also being cut back it's been a scary scramble to get work enough to get by. More important than the money is not getting to work with my wonderful friends on the show. It really is like a family and I am quite sad not to be there when they start taping next week. Some work has spouted up and distressing as unemployment is, I have also been excited about where this will take me. Closed doors, open windows and all that. The good news is that I have lost 15 pounds of the last three weeks . No, it's not because I'm stressing. I have been on a diet that forbids all meat, dairy, wheat (gluten) and sugar. I can't say I'm enjoying what I'm eating all that much, but I must confess there have been many tasty alternatives and it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. What started out as a one week liver cleanse has turned into an extended weight-loss program (My wife's a crafty one). My other secret is some carefully selected vitamin and natural supplements. I have been doing light exercise like taking walks and games on the Wii Fit but I believe that as my journey towards the magic 200 grows closer I will have to rely more heavily on aerobic activity. I would like to add that this past month my blog past ten thousand hits! To thank you all for your faithful reading, I will be posting nude photos of myself! Wait, wait, come back! I was just kidding!

The Deserts of Taiwan

Las Vegas: a vacation hotspot, a getaway, leisure, gambling, buffets, shows... Vegas means none of these things to me. That is because everyone of the seven times or so I've been to Las Vegas was for work.

When I was working in film one of my first real paid gigs and my first chance to work on a whole feature start-to-finish was a low budget indy film called “21”. No, not the 2008 card counting movie you've heard about; the post-college-mutual-friend-dies-and-everyone-goes-to-Las-Vegas-where-there's-partying-and-some-whacky-hijinks-at-a-backwoods-brothel film that you will never ever hear about in your life after this blog post. I had been hired to be the best boy electric (a sort-of lighting equipment/power manager, generator operator and gaffer's right hand man). They were spending the first week of the three shooting in Las Vegas, it was the first time I would be working on a project that was going on location outside of LA. I was thrilled. 

Then they called to tell me I wouldn't be going. Union rules that came attached to their filming permit stipulated that a local best boy must be hired. So I was out and some guy in LV was in.

I got another call from the line producer after their first night of shooting. “It's a disaster,” she told me. “This guy the union sent us has never run a genny (diesel generator) he doesn't seem to know the first thing about lighting, he says he's actually prop guy. Can you fly out tomorrow?”

So I was in and the other guy... was still in (rules are rules).

They were filming at The Orleans Casino and hotel during night hours to avoid the crowds. I'm not sure how thick crowds ever got at the off-the-strip second-rate Orleans. Adjusting to the night hours and twelve hour 'days' made me instantly tired. Sharing a suite with four guys didn't help. There was not much time for the sin of sin city. Some of the crew went out gambling and the script supervisor won around five grand one night, but I was still pretty broke after a year of mostly working for free, so I stayed in and ate mostly at the Wendy's that was close to our hotel.

Like all films I had worked on, it was hard work but it was cool just being in Las Vegas. Even off the strip the lights glowed all night. I sure got sick of the sound of slot machines pounding my brain for twelve hours at a time though.

Maybe a year later, my friend Brandon, who I had worked with on several AFI thesis films, called me to be an electrician for a Tiawanese coffee commercial.

Sure whatever.

At one time I had ambitions of working on some cool films, films that might win a Sundance prize, something I would be proud of working on artistically. Trying to pay bills in LA, it didn't take long before working on a project that paid with checks that were likely to clear, was as good as anything.

The commercial was shooting around Las Vegas. The key word is 'around'. What's 'around' Las Vegas? Nothing! Desert; hot, dry, dusty, rocky, desert (with a few crawly things that want to kill you). We spent our first days working near Parump which is much like it sounds.

The hotel situation was an improvement over my first time in LV, there was only two of us per room instead of four. I was paired with the first camera assistant who kept the camera and a slew of charging camera batteries in the room with us. One doesn't leave a hundred-thousand-plus film camera in a truck no matter how many locks are on it.

The deal was, this beverage company from Taiwan was marketing what they called “American Style Coffee” which was canned and creamed cold coffee sold in a metal can. It said on the label (in English) “American Style Coffee”. I tried some of the stuff that they had on set. It was about ten times sweeter than the Starbucks bottled cappuccino, but other than that, not too terrible.

What was terrible was the craft service. It may seem like nitpicking to the normal world, but in film, even the lowest budget films spend hundreds of dollars a day on their craft or snack table and then also cater a meal every six hour. this production on the other hand had some bags of chips and tiny 8 once bottles of water.

Good thing we're not in the desert... oh wait!

Craft service in Taiwan, I was told, consisted of coffee and cigarettes so i guess we were to consider ourselves fortunate.

The meals weren't much better. One day after a particularly grueling day, I was handed for lunch a Styrofoam box with half a turkey sandwich.

Being way out in the desert had it's interesting points too. Desert people are a unique sort, willing to endure harsh remote living, in many cases simply because they don't 'work and play well with others'. We were shooting on some ladies property, something she was well compensated for. It was a bizarre house that had started out as a trailer and ended up having a sort-of house/deck built around it. The woman was quite particular and we were given a long set of rules for what not to do while on her property. I remember at one point she became quite upset because the set art department had moved some rocks and arranged them in a circle for a shot they needed.

"But even if he puts them all back, they won't be the same rocks in the same place!" she ranted.

A few miles away we shot moving car, truck and motorcycle shots in a valley where there was a general store and bar that looked like they could have come out of a movie along with the characters who inhabited the place

That same location was adjacent to an Air Force bombing range which is pretty much the whole of rural Nevada. A-10 Warthogs would fly overhead alarmingly low, turn on a dime come back and buzz as again. They were surprisingly quite for jet planes.

 A-10 'Warthog' over Nevada

I had to take a reflector halfway up a hill about a quarter mile from the road and halfway up a hill. My journey took about twice as long as it would have had I not been certain I was going to step on a snake over every rock. In truth I have only ever seen two rattlesnakes in the wild and both were at Runyan Canyon park about a mile from our apartment in Hollywood.

This was the first time I had worked with a camera car. Camera cars are usually heavily modified pickups—engine, suspension, brakes nearly everything. It serves as a moving camera and lighting platform complete with it's own diesel generator, that can follow, lead and often tow behind it the “picture car” (the vehicle being filmed).

 A film camera car

Working with the camera car was a lot of fun. It's basically a giant erector set of Speed Rail that you can build into any sort of rigging you need. It was also great to ride on the back of the thing while filming. The owner/operator of our camera car had worked on a number of things since the '70s. He told me about how in the first season of “CHiPs” the motorcycles looked odd being towed by the camera car since they didn't lean into the turns the way motorcycles usually do. They asked him to develop a system that would tow two motorcycles and have them lean naturally into the curves.

The most interesting thing about the experience was seeing American Stereotypes through Taiwanese eyes. Our little commercial had a star. She was a cute girl that we were told was the hottest pop star in Taiwan—of course they would say that. I'm sorry, but to my eyes, Asian female pop stars all look (and sound) very much alike.

Let's just suppose for the sake of having a name to use, that she was Mandopop star Jolin Tsai—one of the more likely candidates I researched.

Jolin Tsai

She was probably a little famous, at least in Taiwan. There was a small but devoted entourage that followed her everywhere including some dude with a video camera who documented her every waking moment in a way that made me wonder if he also shrink-wrapped, weighed and cataloged her doodies.

Every shot of the commercial which was also being used as one of Tsai's rock videos, so the American cliche's were rampant from the beginning: hitch hiking, bikers, Harleys, truckers, Peterbuilts with flames painted on the engine cowling. The desert, Las Vegas, parties, blue jeans (the canned coffee itself was printed to look like blue jean denim), leather jackets. Tsai and her troup of attractive Asian biker friends were constantly holding up cans of the syrupy sweet stuff and shouting at the sunset.

On one occasion when we were actually shooting in Las Vegas, Jolin was sitting on a motorcycle that was being side-towed by the camera car. Between takes I would take a flag and hold it out over her to keep her out of the Sun.

A side tow rig off a camera car

This could go on for ten minutes or more which became very tiring and hot (I was still in the sun myself). When they broke us for the next setup she looked up at me and thanked me in her limited MTV-learned English “Yuh suh kuh” -you're so cool... I think.

The singing portion of her video was thrown together in the last moments of useable light on the last day with a boom box for playback and a second unit camera. I would pay good money to see that video just to find out how it turned out.

My film days ended—thankfully—and I did most of my work in the air-conditioned world of television game shows. This too led me on several trips to Vegas including a Jeopardy remote in 2009. They are still recovering from the union fees.

Before that, I drove my bosse's F-350 dually to Vegas to run some electronics for a group of guys who were trying to pitch a gambling show to the Casinos. The first Casino they were visiting was “Caesar's Palace.” I was told to simply show up at the front entrance which I did. I unloaded all my equipment onto my dolly and two bellhop luggage carts complete with bell hops to push them. We proceeded into the casino, through a mall, through back hallways up an elevator, more hallways, up another elevator that opened onto a wide featureless hallway that was so long I swear I could quite nearly see the curvature of the Earth. Through the doors on the other side we wound through a maze of cubicles and finally into a small conference room where I set up the presentation. One of the folks in the office told me. You know you could have just gone to the loading dock downstairs.

The next hotel was the MGM Grand. What kind of labrynth was this going to be? 

“One floor up on that elevator, second door on your left,” said the security guard.

The two-hundred-fifty mile drive to Las Vegas is a bit of an adventure itself. It is in fact a requirement for LA citizenship; only true Angelenos can state there best 'Vegas drive time' which is often too short to be believed. The highway crosses some of the hottest, most rugged country in the US and goes from elevations from nearly sea level to over fifty-five hundred feet. It can be very beautiful in a rugged desert sort of way. Reference: the opening scene to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. There's a town called Baker around the halfway mark that boasts the worlds largest thermometer (134Ft). It ranges from thirty to one-hundred-thirty five degrees. The highest I've ever seen it was one-hundred-twelve, but that was after dark. It's a good place for lunch and the gas prices are stupid but not yet insane.

Another part of the adventure is the sometimes near death experiences along that most dangerous stretch of the I-15. Remember how Angelenos brag about their 'Vegas times”? The I-15 between LA and LV is one long drag strip for those dudes and duddettes vying for that killer time. You can be going eighty miles an hour and people will still pass you like you're standing still. Add to that, trucks on steep grades, disabled cars on the shoulder and weekend traffic that is beyond insane and you have a certifiable death trap, or good sport—depending on how you look at it.

Comedian Sam Kinison and his girlfriend were some of the many to die on that stretch of highway; then, they were having their own adventure at the time.

The last third of the trip is the most desolate and gas prices and emergency services at the one or two outposts are downright abusive. Ask me how I know.

The company I worked for built a custom poker table for “Celebrity Poker Showdown” and some other poker events. Vegas union rules (screwing me once again) didn't allow for me to work on the actual production of those shows, but I still was able to work on setups and strikes. At the end of one of the poker shows I drove a rental truck to Las Vegas to bring back all of our gear. I decided it would be a good idea to take Audra along since she loves Las Vegas. It was only for one night but a road trip to Vegas is a road trip to Vegas!

We had to do some running around before we left so we weren't on a full tank when we headed up the Cajon pass into the desert communities and the Mojave desert beyond. We were running behind and I didn't want to stop to get gas in Victorville or Barstow. As we passed Baker I took one last look at the gas gauge. Just under a half tank. We had an hour to go till Vegas and we could get some fuel at the border in Primm if need be. It was a truck with bigger than normal tanks to get through a day of deliveries I reasoned and the truck is empty in back to boot. No problem, I thought.

The really scary part of the desert where the only real exit for thirty miles in either direction is where we were when I noticed the gas gauge needle. It was at an 1/8^th of a tank and I swear to you I could see the thing moving.

This event began the following dialog in my head:

“What if we don't make it?”

“We're totally not going to make it.”

“But maybe...”

“No, not going to happen.”

“But what if...”

“Nope.”

“Not even...

“Not a chance.”

“So you mean we're actually...”

“Yup.”

“Damn!”

“You said it.”

All I could do was see how far we could get and hope we could coast to an emergency phone. It wasn't long before the truck started to sputter and loose power. Fortunately we were on a down grade and we coasted to a phone. One might ask where were your cell phones? We both had ours with us and both were completely drained of batteries. There have been rare occasions when my phone or Audra's have been completely drained but never before or since were they out of commission at the same time. Oh, and we both left our chargers at home.

Like they say in the movie airplane “Looks like we picked the wrong week to give up being stupid” (paraphrased).

While we waited for the truck to come with a gas can, we opened up the back of the truck and sat in the shade it provided, feeling the truck jerk to the side every time a big rig blew by.

 The I-15 North right about where we ran out of gas
I remember it well.

So, guess how much it costs to have a can of gas delivered in the middle of the Mojave Desert?... $110!

Guess how much gas they give you in the middle of the Mojave Desert?... Just enough to get to the hillbilly Podunk, middle-of-nowhere gas station that belongs to the guy who delivered the $110 gas who charges—and remember this was when gas was normally under $3 a gallon—$4.10!

You don't want to know how much they wanted for phone chargers!

We passed.

One thing I'll say, it sure feels good rolling down the highway again after you've been sitting along side for an hour or so.

Without phones we couldn't tell the crew in Las Vegas we were going to be late. So we just showed up late and it was all good. It's just as well. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about running out of gas in the middle of the Mojave.

After loading the truck I was drenched in sweat. I can imagine how I looked when I checked into our hotel. For reasons I can't even remember we ended up having to drive back that night after just taking a shower and getting some dinner. We sure topped of that tank before we left town.

About two years ago I got a call from an art director friend of mine for a job. It was the end of a very lean summer and I was pretty hard-up at the time. He offered me a job doing graphics for the new “Let's Make a Deal” game show. They were shooting in Las Vegas.

I passed.

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

Good news! All the work I have been doing has enabled me to purchase a car stereo to replaced the broken one in my car. It might not seem much of a step forward musically, but now I can rehearse singing in the car again. Almost all of the vocal progress I made leading up to my album was done in the car. When my old stereo broke it took the wind out of my sails but after some soldering and pushing and pulling and reading through the complex (for a car stereo) manual I'm ready to go! It'll be a pleasure just to have music back in my commuting life! In the health department: I am going vegetarian, gluten free, dairy and sugar free for at least a week while I do a little cleanse of the liver and other bits. I be honest, it sucks, but not as bad as I thought it would when my wife hit me with the idea. That is after I got up from the ground crying, screaming and pounding my hand and feet on the floor. I mean DO YOU UNDERSTAND NO DAIRY MEANS NO CEREAL!!!! And no, I won't do soy, or almond milk, I'd sooner plaster mayonnaise on a sirloin steak. I have this food thing you see, but I'm fairly sure I'll survive... mostly.