The Sun So Bright It Leaves No Shadow

I made a journey yesterday that has been in the back of my mind for over 30 years.

Since childhood, I have had a recurring dream about a wide open desert valley, with a variety of mountains and canyons surrounding.

I credit this returning vision with giving me my passion for the American west and the deserts found there.

As a parallel story, I have been a long time fan of the band U2 and have passionately followed them since they were little babies in the early 1980s. See this blog post for more information.

In November of 1986, a merry band of Irish lads, their manager and a 10 foot tall Dutch photographer ventured out into the California desert to search for inspiration and imagery to accompany their upcoming album, provisionally titled 'The Two Americas' or 'The Desert Songs.' After spending a day shooting photos in a barren field including a handful taken near an interestingly shaped tree, the band decided to name the album 'The Joshua Tree'

I've wanted to visit the site for many years. In my youth, it wasn't practical to find the information to find the tree. As the internet began to rumble into consciousness, information trickled out about the location and the status of the tree as a shrine of sorts. As time has moved on, it has become apparent that much of the information out there is inaccurate- deliberately so.

You see, this place needs to remain a mystery. It takes several sources of location information and a couple of articles that describe the details to deduce the actual location. Many try. Many have failed. Some have perished in the quest to find it. 

The tree and the surrounding location seem to fit as the location of my recurring dreams. And I have felt drawn to find it. And to satisfy my curiosity.

My first attempt at a visit was in the winter of 2011- my trip was pushed back by a big snowstorm and an unwilling travel companion. Again in May of 2012 I traveled to Vegas, treasure maps clenched in my fist. My partner was more interested in shopping for cheap plastic trinketry than in allowing me to pursue my special goal. At that time I realized that I was better off making this journey alone rather than being weighed down by the presence of another person. So since then I've been planning to do this alone.

Anyway.  I set out of Las Vegas yesterday to drive into the unknown. I drove and drove and drove. The world ends about 20 minutes outside Vegas and doesn't really pick back until...  ummm... well, I never found another bastion of civilization in over 200 miles. Through a closed Death Valley (government shutdown) and beyond. I'm not going to give away the location. It's out there if you really want it. Here's the closest thing to a clue I'll give away:  This is where the numbers fell off of the clockface.

Truthfully, if you're at all familiar with the pictures on the album cover, you'll be able to identify the spot by the mountainous landscapes around the tree.

I parked the car and began walking in the direction of the mountains.  I knew I was close. There were footprints. There was a delicious silence in the air. I spotted a landmark that was unmistakable: a different Joshua Tree, tall and slender with a single branch extended. The top of this guy looks a bit like a rooster perched on a fencepole. 

So I walked in this direction. 

And then I saw it. I couldn't bring myself to look directly at it yet.  So I skirted around the edges and looked at a bunch of the stuff in the surrounding area- fans have left a number of memorials around the site. 

And finally, I turned to look at the tree.

Time has not been kind to this old guy.  He didn't choose celebrity at the age of over 600, it came to him. And ultimately it killed him.  The unique shape and top-heavy proportions of the tree caused one of the main branched to fall off in about 1999 and the rest of the tree toppled over when the right side was too heavy for the structure to support. 

It was a bit like looking at a corpse. Lying in repose on the valley floor for all the world to see. 

The sight was both uplifting and depressing at the same time. 

And I couldn't bring myself to touch it. For an hour I circled and looked and tried and eventually I did.

And then I couldn't let go. I sat on it. I laid on it. I talked to it. I found all the places on the tree that were memorable in the photos of nearly 30 years ago. I found all the scars and all the bruises that have been left here. I touched the arms, the torso, the hands, the head and the heart of the tree. 

Fans have left behind a suitcase (packing a suitcase for a place that none of us has been) full of mementos, pictures, poetry, signed beer bottles, etc. There are actual band autographs on some of these items. And the guestbook(s) are full of beautiful, heartfelt writings from an international group of people who have, in most cases, only one thing in common. 

Things I can't properly articulate here: The icy cold stone that I found. The feeling of terror and exhilaration I felt when a bunch of USAF fighters flew directly overhead as I was listening to 'Bullet the Blue Sky' 

I did find that this is the desert plain I have been dreaming about since childhood. 

I sang some songs. 

I dreamed out loud. 

I discovered a few things about myself.

I discovered a few things about the world.

And after a couple of hours, it was time to say goodbye. I circled the site a couple more times and then the tree said goodbye to me.

Is this goodbye forever? I doubt it.  I'll be back.

Freaking Out

Hi.
My life is a shambles.
I'm sinking.
I need someone to prop me up.
I've burned enough bridges that I don't feel comfortable asking directly.
If you've found yourself here, condolences.

Please give me what you can. I'm running out of breath.

An update.

Everything is different than it was a year ago.
And I mean everything/

New job
No second job
New house
New friends
New focus
A totally fresh situation.

For better or for worse.
It's a bigger struggle than it was before.

Much of what I've spent my life building is gone, destroyed, heavily modified or just plain wrong for me at this time.

I'd like to say that I'm happy.  But that isn't true.
I'd like to say that I'm successful, but that isn't true.

At this point it's become a race to see who drowns last.
Right now I feel like my lungs are full of air but my arms are getting tired.

Algebra

9-9-69
+40 years
6-22-10  I spent hours thinking of my friend.
+101 days and he was dead.
9-21-11 I spent hours thinking of my friend
+101 days and I'm exactly the same age he was when he died.
That was New Year's Eve last year.
Now I'm approaching another milestone.
And I'm not fond of it.

Ch ch ch ch changes

I can't believe how different life is right now compared to how it was a year ago.
Every major element of my life is different.
Friends.
Family.
Work.
Hobbies.
Outlook on life.

Well. My car is the same.
So is the dog.
But that is pretty much it.

Convergence

I am generally a good planner and have had good luck laying out long-term plans and roadmaps for life. But recently I have found myself in a bit of a quandary:

What would/should one do if their 20 year, 10 year, 5 year, 1 year and 6 month plans all came to a head at the same time? Like within 2 weeks of each other.

I can't for the life of me see or predict what is going to happen next.

It scares the living hell out of me.

A Decade Ago....

I'm thinking back to a time, a decade ago, where we here in my little town were visited by an incredible array of international visitors.

In 1994, when the announcement was made that Salt Lake City would be hosting the Winter Olympics, I watched the news and thought to myself "That's going to be a lot of work.  I want a piece of it."

I spent the next several years doing things that prepared me to work somewhere on the production crews for the events, but I had no idea exactly in what position.
In January of 2001 a friend approached me about forming a new corporation to do production work.  We had worked together at another couple of production companies around town, I respected the guy and felt like this might be a good thing to do for a while.
So we started us a new little company and started doing a few gigs around town for a couple of customers.

Things were going along great, we had a relationship with an event producer who was closely tied to the Governor's office.  We were working along, designing a killer 'Welcome to Utah' type event, tied with the arrival of the Olympic torch to Salt Lake City and the arrival of a number of dignitaries, including Presidents of several countries and ambassadors from a bunch more.
I'm thinking that my Non-Disclosure Agreement has finally expired, so I can make public the designs for said event:

It was shaping up to be the adventure of a lifetime.

Then 9/11 happened.  Everything got more difficult and expensive.  We had already begun background checks. They tripled in difficulty.
The big welcome event was eventually cancelled. Secret Service determined that El Presidente was not to be on the steps of the State Capitol building.
We did end up doing a smaller presidential event inside a building.
For the same client, we ended up doing the VIP hospitality suite near the Medals Plaza, where we hosted heads of state, entertainers, athletes, media and a whole bunch of wannabe VIPs.  Over the span of a week, installing sound, lighting and video systems, I crawled through the basement(s), attics, utility access holes and tunnels (yes, it's true) of this building. The other thing, it's haunted. Very very haunted.
Word to the wise: don't go in a bathroom right after Katie Couric...

Another client was AT&T, who had a large marketing tent in a parking lot.  I spent several days of my life under this tent chiseling frozen cable out of the ice. (Cable gets warm when it has electricity running through it- then melting nicely down into the ice) Glamorous indeed.
Monster.com created a giant snow maze in Park City.  We spent 2 months planning the lighting and sound systems, dealing with ridiculous city ordinances and permits and regulation. It turned out OK.

Another client hooked us up with a sweet gig:
Projection for the closing ceremonies.
We spent 2 weeks building projection towers above the stadium, visible in this picture as the white-shrouded elements on the roof.

The projectors were 12x12,000 watt Pani Projectors-  a fairly old technology, basically a big filmstrip projector (although computer controlled and super cool)

 Highlights of the event:

Watching Moby soundcheck 2 songs for 4 hours.  We (the crew and I) snuck down into the stands, right by his stage. at the end of every song, we would clap and scream loudly, making Mr. Melville blush and giggle.  After a couple times of this, he was actively playing with us, watching us, making jokes and laughing though the endless camera rehearsals. A good time.
I learned that Gloria Estefan, Harry Connick Jr., Christina Aguilera, Bon Jovi and Kiss all lip-sync their TV performances.
Waited in a security line with Ms. Aguilera and her beefcake bouncer.
Rode an elevator with Mr. Connick Jr.
Sat in a meeting with Rudy Guiliani
Defaced KISS's stage with the words "KISS SUCKS" with all the "S" shapes in the lightning bolt shape.  On the floor right in front of Gene Simmons.

So the real reason we were there was to do the projection for the show.  How big was our screen you ask?
Ever been on a football field?  Yeah.  Bigger than that.
We unveiled the logo for the Torino Winter games in 2006. 
Here are some pictures of the projections:

And a video courtesy of YouTube:

 And some sage words from my friend and co-worker John Chapman, talking about a long night and a 1 mile walk.
The picture displays the scenario described:

The first 60 or 70 feet weren’t bad at all. By the time we reached the shop, we were trading arms and shoulders every thirty paces. The last park we walked through was, until recently, a gathering place for the homeless crowd. I _never_ imagined myself walking through it at night, much less at 1 am. Much less with a light show bouncing between the both of us. Somewhere, there are a few pictures of that night.
One last story:
One of our clients for the month was the Italian group that will host the next set of games. We spent a few days building three projector towers on top of the stadium. Each tower had around 7K pounds of concrete blocks on the base, to provide stability. Getting all those rocks from bottom to top was a project all by itself. Getting them from top to bottom was much more...amusing.
Anyway, the roof slopes down to the center, and is peppered with storm drains. One of our guys was cleaning up the space and found a 2 gallon cooler full of hot cocoa - the kind made with milk. It had looong since expired, so he poured it down the drain.
A few minutes later, a union light guy burst through the elevator door, seething with anger and firmly convinced that he’d been “*#$%&*^$% puked on.”
It turns out that the storm drains don’t make it all the way to the bottom of the building. Rather, they go down a few floors, then turn _in_ to the stadium. Unfortunately, this guy was clinging to a lighting truss with both hands and all ten toes when it happened.

I hope the statute of limitations has looong since expired....

So what did this 10 week experience give me?
It saved my company in the post-9/11 world from certain failure.  All over the country, companies were failing- but in SLC, everyone was boosted by the injection of extra work.
Personally I was able to pay off enough debt that I bought a house. And three other people on my crew were able to do the same...