Big, Empty and Weird

Salton Sea and Imperial County

Make me stop! Soon you’ll be bored to sleep, or to death, whichever comes first. Clearly, I’m going to ride the graffiti train till even I can’t take it anymore. When you’re abreast of the Salton Sea, you’re in the tagging capital of the world, Desert Division. Silent subjects surround me in this desiccated patch of the Mojave. And I’m easy prey as you can attest by now.

Half a dozen miles north of beautiful Calipatria, the scene of last week’s ode, and on the way to Bombay Beach I saw what appeared to be a distribution facility of some kind. The loading docks and bays conveyed as much. It seemed to have closed years ago since every available surface was tagged, floor to ceiling, inside and out. An installation that elaborate had to have taken decades to complete.

I don’t speak graffiti, so it was mostly gibberish to me. Take a crack at it and tell me what it says.

Somehow the scale of an empty warehouse sitting on 10 acres of graded sand is more desolate than an empty house or sagging trailer. There’s a rich loneliness conveyed by the scene. There’s an implied history of a bustling place where produce, my assumption, was packed, shipped and dozens of workers were employed.

The Salton Sea and Imperial County, generally, are achingly lonely with more than a touch of weirdness. It’s an entirely different planet.

Mitigation efforts are afoot to revive the Sea. To provide continuous fresh water and to block the pollutants that have created such a toxic stew are a daunting task but California’s biggest lake is worth it. The prospect of the Salton reviving its 1960s heyday is alluring though unlikely. Echoes of the Rat Pack, the Beach Boys and Hollywood glitterati murmur softly.