August 21, 2007 by PT Rothschild.

A SNOW FIRE & OTHER ODDITIES ON MOUNTAIN NEAR PLANET HEMET


Idyllwild, CA – Today at 11:15AM a fire call was turned in to the Forrest Service reporting a fire that had re-ignited about 6500’ above and to the south of the small rural community known as Snow Creek Village located at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains. Seen from Highway 111 which goes to Palm Springs after the I-10 fork, the blaze looked much larger from the ground than the 10-15 acres that was the official estimate, as water tankers flew into the smoke to drop their H₂O payload. The fire was burning in a remote plateau and had burned approximately 30-40 acres by late afternoon though still out of control. The wind which always blows through the I-10 corridor and seemed a steady 30-40MPH at ground level earlier dropped off to 10MPH around 6PM. This area just past Cabazon, CA is vastly picturesque with mountains that rise up from the flat desert floor studded with scrub bushes, rocks, the large wind turbines you see in some movies that stand in tall white rows, and a dual ribbon of Union Pacific tracks that snake through the valley and follow along side the freeway, producing a long cargo train it seems every five minutes. It is hoped that the drop in temperature at night from the 107º in the daytime will help contain the fire’s spread until the aerial water assault can resume in the morning. As if on cue for this combined story, the fire’s name is, the ‘Snow Fire’.

Yesterday as a couple drove along the Dominagoni Parkway toward ‘Apache Peak’, also part of the San Jacinto Mountains, the driver looked up at the peak and saw something a bit bizarre. Up on the peak area he noticed a large somewhat square mirror-like reflection. “If it had simmered it wouldn’t have seemed so strange, but there’s nothing up there, I’ve camped up there and there are no houses though it is a trippy area with a lot of metaphysical guys and a Buddhist temple.” The reflection stayed about 30-45 seconds then ‘winked out’, said the wife unfazed.

Two days before yesterday a family was up on the Devil’s Slide Trail near Humber Park (Idyllwild proper) hiking along. The husband had stopped a few feet behind his wife and child and was taking still pictures of trees and such. The husband heard a sound behind him and thought it might be someone coming down the trail on an ATV though it didn’t sound like a gasoline engine. Suddenly out of the corner of his right eye he caught a glimpse of something moving. Turning quickly upward toward the motion, the husband was shocked to see the cause of the winning engine fly over his head in the shape of a gray cylinder approximately two feet long and maybe 2-3” in diameter. It whizzed over him at maybe 15 feet overhead before swerving toward where the wife and child were hunting ‘walking’ sticks. As they turned toward the sound, the object flew over the trees, vanishing in an incredible burst of speed, leaving the wife and child with an aural testimonial record only. “I don’t know how it was flying, it had no wings, it was just a cylinder and not even that big!” said the bewildered husband.

Ahh, Planet Hemet. I spent a year there one summer.

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August 21, 2007 by PT Rothschild.

WILL THE VAULT BE UNSEALED?


After the city shut down The Vault by being duplicitous (as evidenced in the conflicting letters Vault owner Riccardo received, reported on in the Inland Empire Weekly, 8/9-8/15 ‘Rock The Bells’ issue, still available online, see The Vault, Temecula) wrapped in the guise of the usual bureaucratic requirements, you may wonder how or why this type of resistance came to be registered against a safe place for young adults to listen to music in a controlled non-alcoholic atmosphere. I mean giving the ‘kids’ something to do on the weekends and keeping them out of trouble would seem something that everyone would seem to want. Seem is the operative word here. You see for those who have moved here in the last ten years, there was once an arcade here in T-town, even before there was a bowling alley in T-town. The arcade got complaints, and even after the bowling alley opened and it got complaints on its own, the arcade still got blamed and it closed. The bowling alley ‘moved’ to Murrieta. As people came and things went on in the valley over the years, it has become obvious that those kids not involved in accepted programs of sports (Pop Warner, martial arts, etc.), civics (leadership events, scouts, etc.), music (talent shows, church cantatas), and concerts (parks, holidays, schools), were left out of the mix, by design for with nothing to do. Perhaps they would go somewhere else and leave the valley to be enjoyed by those who fit the accepted patterns. With the growth of the valley and the growth of the scene, a new state of affairs exists now in the valley. This new moxie is visualized through the ‘hardcore/metal/punk’ scene which boosts the bandana-ed ‘Voice of the Temecula Rock Scene (-The Californian), one Ivan McClain. A ‘little bird’ once told me that ‘Ivan made the ‘establishment’ nervous (he is not allowed to wear his bandana at the Mall, nor is anyone else now). It seems a ‘fair cop’ since Ivan exploded unto the music promotion scene rather quickly, got a lot of press (striking a defiant pose in each picture), and has greatly helped to get the new music/alternative music scene noticed by every ‘free’, well almost every free periodical found around town. Those that don’t feature any scene news now certainly know about the scene. Back in the day only the ‘rents knew about Madlins if their kids went to shows there. Now people who don’t have kids or whose kids don’t go to shows, know about the rock/alternative scene, and especially the shows at The Vault. Why?? Because The Vault ‘issue’ turned ‘Ivan’ into the ‘Billy Jack’ for the hardcore/metal kids, a segment of the population always left out around T-town, especially now with all the hills becoming neighborhoods. Currently the ‘old’ attitude, the one that has prevailed for years for the privileged, has met a bold front blowing in from the new music side of the mountains, and long dormant cumulus clouds of seemingly (see, there’s that word again) content-ness are darkening to join the coming crescendo.This may not be Tinsel Town or New York, but T-town’s As The Note Sounds is an thrilling soap opera to witness and part of what makes this, a scene. Stay tuned for the next exciting music chapter.

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