memory
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Joel sent a project description that had something to do with Disneyland and the history of ancient California—it was all tied together in a really smart way. He was teaching ceramics at UCLA and brought his students out who made clay dishes using an ancient technique. He was going to start a fire at 6am so by 6pm it would be hot and big enough to fire the dishes. During that time he was also going to roast a pig using an ancho rub recipe. The pig roast would take 10 hours on the spit, and then the fire would get hot enough so when people came he would give them the plates and they could fire them by placing them in the fire.
We had the firewood delivered the day before—then later that day, as we were driving down Gods Way Love and getting closer to the property, I ran into a caravan of menacing looking people who circled around my car in order to make us stop. They asked if I had anything to do with this property. I said yes, it was mine. And they asked what I was going to do with all that firewood. I said we’re going to roast a pig. They said if you do, you’re going to be arrested the moment you light the fire. They were really angry and super aggressive about it—they said you can’t have fire here, this is a fire zone. I said, I don’t want to burn anything, we are trying to do something nice for the area.
They started to calm down after a while, and thought HDTS was a cool idea. Joel had showed up by then with the pig and they said we couldn’t have the fire on my parcel, but let’s talk to Garth. Garth was sort of a guru in the community and apparently, I had stepped into some kind of subculture, which makes sense out in the desert. Garth showed up in his robe with no shoes. We explained what we were doing and he invited us to do the fire at his property because he had a fire pit and was the fire god.
He told us how to get to his property and it looked like something out of Indiana Jones. He had all kinds of exotic vegetation growing out of the sides of boulders and a teepee, and a lake of moondust that he had collected and Joel and Garth ended up becoming friends. The only problem with it was that the advertisement for the pig roast was for my property so I had to spend the whole next day sitting on the haystacks and anytime anyone came I would have to give them directions to Garth’s. But then I finally made it over there and it was a huge hit! They ate that pig from the snout to its tail. They were waiting in line, it was popular.
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We met Garth for the first time at HDTS 1, when he graciously lent us his fire pit for Joel Otterson’s pig roast after voicing concern that we might burn down the desert if we tried it on one of our own sites—he has a small magnetic “lake” of iron filings found in the desert and an outdoor kitchen. He’s welcomed all of us to explore his grottoes and meets his birds.