WHITE PROJECT
The White Project: Radio Interview
Rt. 86. South of Indio
The completion of the Standard and Regular Buildings in 1987 represented a new chapter in the oddball career of the LA based company, Casaverde Construction.
Cory T. Tchsucki reports for Radio KROP, Brawley.
Dateline: 06.09.1993
Location: Route 86
Transcript
There aren’t any songs yet about Route 86 South out of Indio but now the new buildings on the Highway have been completed it sure won’t be long before they inspire one of our local bands to pen a rock ‘n’ roll poem to this new landmark out on the plains. Local boy, Chip Faulks, one time hell-raiser down at Pete’s Pool Hall on Main, and 6th has long since hung up his cue and picked up his power tool to join up with Stuart Hopps in Casaverde Construction.
I met them yesterday at dawn out at the building they call the Long White One. I joined them sitting in the back of their pickup as the dawn broke over the Chocolate Mountains. The buildings previously no more than a grey shape across the sand slowly turned candy pink and as we sucked on our coffee and sugar laden donuts the three of us sat silent. We just got high on the color as it shifted through the gears sliding slow towards the white that gives the collection of structures its name. I tell you, words don’t hardly begin to explain how this can turn you on. Some say it’s a real ugly thing. Looks no more than a bunch of billboards out there. I tell you, folks, I’ve seen a lot of so called art here and overseas but this mile long white thing beats the lot.
Chip says it’s white ‘cos Silver, the Lone Ranger's horse was white, but business client Owen C. Lopez says it’s because he’d gotten about 350 gallons of white paint from a fire sale over at El Centro. Said he needed to be rid of it. Couldn’t think why he bought it in the first place. All it wanted, said Stu, was mixing with Feldspar to give it that extra glow. Feldspar’s that sparkle the road boys mix in when painting the line down the middle of your street. White, blue, yeller, it’s all the same so long as it’s real long out there.
So, folks, that’s how I came to spend from dawn to dusk out on the plain.
It was time for Chip and Stu to go.
I slid off the tailgate and strolled towards my Lexus, still sitting in the shade of a lone Sequoia. The red Chevy pickup rumbled towards the black top in a cloud of white dust. I settled into the vinyl, and stared across again at the structures now painting there blank signless faces against the mountains beyond. Occasionally tires hummed by in the distance on 86. Less often a bird swooped from the sky onto some critter committing a suicide mission in the dirt. Less often still a big jet drew its journey in the sky with its white vapor trail.
AUTO DETAILING CLUB
Saticoy Avenue, Brawley
GLAMIS
Glamis, Algodones Dunes
I V H G C
To find the offices of the seventeen retiree members of the Imperial Valley Chapter of the Honda Goldwing Club, you need to find your way to Bombay Beach, California. Here beside the Salton Sea on the edge of the desert with the Chocolate Mountains as a backdrop, the members organise the cruises, cookouts and vacations for the members of the club both state and nationwide. Each member is locatable using GPS technology and can be reached on the road at any time. Members in the saddle communicate via helmet headsets. In addition the members comprise a core of expertise on such diverse subjects as finance, orthodontists, film, fishing and the best College or University for a beloved grandchild.
The trailers are drawn up in radial formation in the traditional wagon train fashion around an oval dish, 50 feet in diameter, of cold rolled red playground asphalt whose perimeter is lit by 5’ - 0” foot high impact, flame resistant, abattoir, cool white fluorescent fittings. Bikes of members and visitors are parked radially on their kickstands around the perimeter of the disc. Leading into and out of the disc is a long pour of multi-coloured layered feldspar encrusted asphalt. The pour extends across the desert for a half-mile to the nearest road. The extent, and form of the pour was dictated by signals from a single seater aircraft overhead to the red Chevrolet consort pick up on the ground. The angle of inclination of the wings indicating the volume of asphalt to be released by the dump truck travelling at a consistent 5 miles per hour.
Meetings and Party nights are held at the Gold Disc close by. Here the Chapter’s vast collection of vinyl recordings is given frequent airings, one of the trailers acting as a radio station. At night an array of Klieg lights are fired up to and focused on the disc, the reflected light bouncing off the Dust Cloud, a kind of Monument to Motorcyclists. Industrial scale multi-nozzle leaf blowers switched in sequence, and embedded in fibreglass rocks anchored to the desert floor raise the line of dust.
The desert floor itself is illuminated by landing lights arranged to scale in the pattern of the major stars of the Milky Way corresponding exactly to the location overhead at 03.40 EST on August 16 1977.
Specification
Total Area: Site 34,300 sq. ft.
Trailers 7,500 sq. ft.
Air Con: Mecca Airgineering
Deck: Bombay Marine Services
Steelwork: Butler Buildings Valley Steel Construction
Water: Tanks A Lot, Sandzeimer Welding
RESIDENCES