further adventures at the bleeding edge of sanity and inexorable, throbbing chaos, with hummingbirds

By Laurie Anderson.

by Leonard Cohen. single take after many weeks rest.

Desulfators, catastrophic fuses, buss bars, oh my!

Delays.

Eight months and fifteen thousand dollars later, I am still not finished.

Meh.

—-

Last night’s landmark (in lieu of project completion) was the final interconnection and torquing of the battery bank itself.  With no charging in about a year and prolonged exposure to the elements, bank voltage was measured at 49.63V, the rough equivalent of 12.4V on a twelve-volt system.  Which really ain’t too shabby, and utterly miraculous given the combination of neglect and rough-housing these things have endured since coming into my ownership.  But that’s all I had to show for the effort: four significant digits.  An electrochemical “Hello, world!”  The first clumsily-uttered syllables of a precocious infant.  Proof of life inside that unbelievably massive, toxic aquarium, the soft machine containing (at full charge) nearly one-quarter megawatt-hour.  Antony & the Johnsons should sing a ballad in homage to this monstrosity.

Tonight, after escaping from the afternoon heat for many hours in the *other* container, I worked by flashlight, slowly pushing closer to completion.  Whatever criticisms I may hurl at myself publicly, I am trying for the first time in my life to actually do everything right on this project.  Every little step calls for introspection, “what-if” contingency anticipation, reconsideration of the previous three steps, and painfully cautious execution.  Usually I just rush through things, after the motto, “We’ll fix it in the mix.”  The stakes are too high now.  There might be a caustic sink hole in the ground to show for miscalculation.  Or permanent blindness.  Or worse.

Tomorrow I’ll pull down the protective plywood sheets I put up this morning, connect the desulfators and then figure out what to do next.

Yesterday was unseasonably cool and, in the morning, overcast with cumulus clouds, which blocked the sun occasionally, making it a perfect time to go out into the sculpture garden and get busy with some projects.  The windmill’s tail needed to be re-mounted; the Tower needed to get its electric lighting started; ditto for the dome.  I got all three done, plus a few sundry Tower modifications / repairs.  On top of that, I got a good bit of maintenance inside the living area taken care of, and cleaned up the music room.  Just the vacuuming took nearly an hour.  The dust out here is brutal, and I don’t fight it very often, so when I do, it’s a real chore.

Windmill, repaired

While I was up on the top level of the Tower, I took a few photos of East Jesus below (click for larger image.)  I got a little work done at dusk and will hopefully get more done soon, posting the evidence accordingly.

I haven’t tested it yet, but the dome should perform quite well as a counterpoise for the screwdriver antenna, and I got to thinking…. what if I set up the Mac as a sound capture / looper / processor / mixer and created live mashups of ham & swl radio signals, ergo Geodesic Dome As Radiophonic Musical Instrument?  I was thinking of doing an extended work of sound art based on that idea anyway… whaddaya think?

Reminder: The Mammoth BBQ is Coming!

Word arrived today that Captain USA will be performing his latest and most spectacular stunt to date – The Flaming Burro of Freedom – here in Slab City (at or near The Range) on Independence Day.  Despite the punishing summer heat of the low desert, masses will assemble to witness this unique and daring celebration of freedom of expression.  In his own words,

Hello Friends! I have finally found a place where I can truly champion freedom Like only Capt USA can. I want to invite everyone I know to share my joy in finding it. I don’t expect many to join me because it truly is Hells Anvil for heat but there is a crystal clear cool canal running nearby for swimming in during the hottest part of the day. The following correspondence is with a revered slab city artist responsible for creating East Jesus which, if you’ve been to Slab City, you know, speaks for itself in capturing the mysterious fringe of freedom that whispers to us all when society seems to mean everything but. <snip>

The complete exchange between Captain USA and myself can be read here.

I READ IT ON THE INTERNET, SO IT MUST BE TRUE!

Your Invitation to Erect the Mammoth, Etc.

(redirects you to Facebook, where you’ll have to log in, sign in, whatever.  sorry.  not my idea.)

Please take a moment to read the East Jesus survival guide if you plan on camping out.  Athankew.

Greetings, sports fans.

It’s about 105F outside now, but I still stir from within the air-conditioned confines of the East Jesus nerve net / radio shack / promotions office, just to go and once again have a look at Cosmos – the mesmerizing, elegant sculpture by Royce Carlson, on display here until it finds a new, permanent home with someone wealthier than myself.  If I had the twenty grand, I’d buy it outright.  I will be very sad to see it go.  Contact Royce directly at <zenzibar@earthlink.net> if you happen to be interested.

The piece already has a bit of history and infamy.  It was on display at Burning Man in 2004, and appeared in the movie Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis.  It’s long been my dream to take sneaky advantage of the fact that I have lots of space virtually for free, and there are lots of large sculptures out there whose storage fees are slowly draining the coffers of the artists.  Technically, the Transit Antenna bus was the first artwork to be added to the collection from the outside, but that’s in a class of its own – artwork, mobile home, museum and monument to itself, installation and guest house….  Cosmos is a *sculpture*, period.

Over on the “dark side” of the sculpture garden, where a more chaotic, post-apocalyptic sensibility and stories of The Fall of Western Civilization told in a dozen assemblages made of junk reign supreme, Joe Holliday’s Mammoth saw its resurrection – at least the first phase of it.  With a skeleton crew of helpers working in the afternoon heat, the parts were unloaded, concrete footings were poured and the armature was assembled, awaiting a larger gathering of participants to hoist it up into place and finish its skin. After some seeing and sawing about whether or not music and festivities in honor of Mammoth’s erection would take place here, it’s beginning to look once again as if some sort of festival will indeed happen.  In any case, all signs point to at least a final assembly and upright-making on June 19th.

Like much of Holliday’s art – installations, graphics and sculpture – the Mammoth is raw, aggressive, and brilliant in its visionary scope.  Joe begins with abstract, ontological ideas within a conceptual framework, incorporating process and discovery and the ever-present limitations of whatever material happens to be on hand in the realization and representation of the idea.  Accordingly, finished works are challenging, richly textured, and reveal density and complexity to the diligent observer.  These photos is no way do the Mammoth justice – they are shown solely for their documentary value, and in a kind of surreal contrast to the final, standing sculpture.  Proof we did something this weekend.

Mammoth is to become a permanent installation of the East Jesus sculpture garden.

Cosmos (by Royce Carlson) in motion from chasterus on Vimeo.

Living in the middle of nowhere, between a live bombing range and one of the world’s most spectacularly surreal and barren man-made disasters turned wildlife sanctuary, ensconced in an art compound made principally of garbage, has its advantages.  For one, the boring cookie-cutter mundanes you don’t really want to see (I mean, you moved out to the middle of nowhere for a reason, right?) think you’re a weirdo and go away.  And then the poeple you do want to meet, greet and get drunk with on occasion think you’re a weirdo and say to themselves, “Wow!  A WEIRDO!  One of us!  One of us!“  People who make big ridiculous things out of metal, shredded tires or styrofoam.  People who pose naked with guns and people who set themselves on fire.  In my three-and-a-half years here, I’ve been lucky enough to attract some very interesting folks, some of whom have eventually contributed to the general weirdness of East Jesus in very positive ways.  Today I received a missive from a gentleman who goes by the stage name of Captain USA.

No, I had never heard of him before, either.  Note well: that’s pronounced “Captain OO-sa.”

Indulge me in my initial skepticism for a moment: Sounds kinda hokey, right?  Like a cross between a poor man’s Evel Knievel, some lost middle-aged biker dreaming of Captain America (the Easy Rider one,) and the guy who still hasn’t gotten around to scraping the “Pride In Proudness” stickers off his car that have been there since 9/11.  Well, sort of, but not really.  He’s in on the joke.  He is a master of the fine art of Not Taking One’s Self Too Seriously.  Captain USA is a backyard superhero.  He sets himself on fire and then jumps off his garage roof into a kiddie pool.  Then he does the same thing, only on a motorcycle.  All this, and rightly so, in the name of Freedom.  Good stuff, highly compelling:

Now here’s the fun part, for all you East Jesus / Slab City fans:

Hello Sir! I love your art garden at Slab city. Been there 3 times. Love the desert ducks and the art cars especially. I was with art car camp at burning man last year and have been gratefully learning more and more about the art car community ever since. I have a proposition for you that I think could be one of the super duperest art car projects everr!

My name is Jimmy from Georgia aka Capt USA. One of my favorite forms of expression is thrilling stunts I perform as Capt USA celebrating freedom on the 4th of July. Each year my stunts get bigger and better and this year will be my greatest to date. My Nissan Pathfinder has 235000 miles on it. Hauled a trailer all the way to Cabo and back down the hard road along the Sea of Cortez. I call her El Burro, hence the title of my new stunt and art car project…The Flaming Burro of Freedom.

I want to haul the Burro out to slab city on July 2 and start hot gluing roman candles and barrels of fun fire works along both sides of the exterior, spray paint it red white and blue. Then on the 4th spray the exterior with just enough gasoline to light it up and set all the fire works off at once while a stunt driver drives it and I ride El Burro on top in the Capt USA costume. Sounds crazy and dangerous. It is. But I have done this kind of thing many times. Check out my video. It will be amazing and no one will get hurt.

I’m reaching out to you for help. Slab City is a community and I don’t want to barge in with my vision. I was hoping the stunt could help contribute to the freedom celebration that will already be taking place. I am hoping for your blessing, advice, and help to create the Flaming Burro of Freedom. I was thinking that maybe in return I could give you El Burro. She could be cleaned up after the stunt and turned in to a whole new creation. She still runs. Iam using her today to install Satellite Dishes for DirecTV.

Anyway, I hope this letter finds you happy and well. And once again, I love your art.

Jimmy from Georgia

Thanks, Jimmy!  You’ll be hearing from me real soon.

Don’t look at me.  I read it somewhere on Facebook.  Dated March oops May 28th.  I’m puzzled.  Oh, well.  Royce is still bringing Cosmos out, though, and perhaps the Mammoth will make it out here another time.

Whatever the case may be, the installation of one (or two) sculptures fabricated in the outside world long before the inception of the East Jesus sculpture garden — whether or not they happen to be made of junk — is an auspicious occasion.  And, I mean, it *is* hotter than a pistol out here in the summer…

That is all.  As you were.  Just wanted you to be the first to know.