Happy July Fifth

For years, artists, musicians, and writers fled the confines of the city to escape to the barren, sun-baked scruff of the desert.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico you'll find an entire museum of Georgia O'keeffe works detailing her love affair with the landscape and the architecture of America's great western deserts.

I love the desert too.

Not for its craggy cliffs and soaring mountains.
Not for its abundance of invincible wildlife.
Not even for its wide open freeways that bring delight to itchy motorists with the need for speed.

For me, it's all about the Meth and the people who abuse it -- White Trash.

I know I run the risk of coming off as some snooty, East Coast intellectual elitist, ok, maybe not intellectual. But let me just remind you I have just spent six days sleeping on the ground at the Upper Grays Meadow Campground, stepping in deer scat and showering from a spigot attached to a plasticine bag.

Besides I'm comfortable enough in my West LA, white Collar, privileged skin to admit that I am fascinated by White Trash.

Always have been.
Always will be.

By some good stroke of fortune, my oldest daughter shares my fascination. And loves nothing more than to soak in and study the White Trash way of life, including the homemade tattoos, the jerkwater patriotism, and the nonexistent dental hygiene.

We are both drawn to it, like a moth to a Roman Candle flame.

And so it was no surprise, on our southbound travel through the Owens Valley, she took me up on my offer to plow through Palmdale and make an adventurous stop in Littlerock.

If there was a God, and all the billboards and shabby adobe churches seem to suggest there is, Littlerock would be the Mecca/Jerusalem of souvenirs.

What Detroit is or was to cars, Littlerock is to kitsch. Kites, wind socks, Pez dispensers, nostalgia lunch boxes, Dukes of Hazard Monopoly sets, and enough confederate flag belt buckles to outfit the entire state of South Carolina.

Naturally we stopped, as thousands always do, at the Charlie Brown Farms. Where the tired collector of Chinese-made unicorn figurines or inauthentic Nazi military pins can refresh themselves on homemade fudge or a thick, frosty date shake.

Charlie Brown Farms, for the uninitiated, stocks millions upon millions of tschotschkes. Shelves upon shelves of crap for as far as the eye can see. Or at least until you exit one gift shop and enter one of the NINE adjoining stores that comprise the farm.

I don't want to sound like the proud gloating father, but you have my word on it, that my daughter spotted the funniest piece of all (pictured above.)

Mind you, there was an entire menagerie of reclining creatures ready to get soused, including a bear, a pig, an alligator and a Bernese Mountain Dog. But, and this is where my daughter's Scottish and Jewish heritage came in handy, normally $35.99, this parched symbol of our national culture was marked down 50%!

And lest you think I simply snatched a photo of this one-of-a-kind, machine-crafted family heirloom and left Littlerock empty-handed, I invite you to gaze upon its magnificent beauty as it temporarily enjoys its new home perched in my dining room.

At least until my wife comes home from her business trip.