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Show TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT By Jim Stiles The First Annual Lame Alien Swimsuit Issue WelL.I suppose I should explain. If you've followed this publication's antics over the last eight years, you know that toward the end of the year, we go a little crackers here at the Zephyr. Ok...OK. I go a little crackers. I can't even believe I did this every four weeks for seven years. My eternal thanks to the cosmic forces who gave me the concept that saved my life: BIMONTHLY. But even with the more relaxed schedule, I always find a certain level of apathy invading the cobwcbbed comers of my slowly atrophying brain during this cold dark winter season. Most of the contributors felt the same way. And so, years ago, I created the first Lame Issue. I wanted the readers to know at the outset that this particular edition of my fine publication might not measure up to their expcctations...we've always tried to be honest, even if we stunk. However, with the new format and the expanded circulation, I wanted to give my readers more. In the August 1995 edition of the Zephyr, I introduced the First Annual Swimsuit Issue. It was a total flop...I was still dunging 75 cents for the damn thing and in August, the only tourists in town arc foreigners. The Germans and the French and the Italians saw nothing humorous at all about the Swimsuit Issue. Besides it was August and hot and swimsuit editions arc supposed to come out in the middle of the winter. So I decided to save the swimsuits for the Lame Issue. And then, for good measure, because this is one of the weirdest, otherworldly towns on the North American continent, I thought to include our little extraterrestrial buddies in the special issue as well. And I thought of it mostly because I could imagine all the strange, twisted images my crazed friend Dan O'Connor would conjure up and computer manipulate (more on O'Connor later). And so, there you have it: THE FIRST ANNUAL LAME ALIEN SWIMSUIT ISSUE. If there never is a 1998 version of this special edition, I hope it's because aliens in swimsuits somehow monitored the Zephyr and found me worthy of abduction. I'm not kidding. I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my Reason to an O altitude) Sir Thomas Browne S3S5! The "Cocktail Hour" in Moab About forty years ago, a man wrote a book called The Cocktail Hour in Jackson Hole. It was about the then dead silent off season in Jackson, Wyoming. Back then the tourists ended their Yellowstone-Gran- d Teton vacations by Labor Day and didn't return until Memorial Day Weekend of the following year. The when the locals reclaimed nine very slow months their town, was the Cocktail Hour. Not bad. We have a cocktail hour here in Moab too. It's shrinking, of course, and dramatically at times, thanks to what the Chamber of Commerce calls "building up the season's shoulders." There was a time, not too long ago, that the season did not begin in earnest until EasterJeep Safari in April and ended in early October with the departure of the Snowbirds for warmer climes. That has all changed of course. Even in December, locals were still snarling at tourists who would not queue up in the checkout line at City Market and tiying to find an open gas pump in town on a mild weekend can be a challenge. However, the albeit abbreviated cocktail hour does still exist and most of even the most driven of us are grateful for it. And it exists simply because of the way the Earth revolves around the sun. It's called winter. The days are short and the nights are long, the temperature drops well below freezing at night. And in the Moab Valley, a thick layer of fog and smog often settles over us like an unhealthy comforter and stays for weeks at a time. I can remember years when our winter inversion lasted seven weeks and...this is the kind of stuff that just drives the Travel Council nuts...and we had to take a drive up the La Sal loop road just to be sure the sun was still out there somewhere. We haven't had that kind of winter for a few years now.. .so we're definitely due. But it's the cold weather, the misery of freezing temperatures and excesses of moisture, that makes locals in a tourist town happy. Some of my happiest times outdoors have come when I was the most miserable. I figured out a long time ago, long before the Moab Boom, that the best way to avoid the tourist crowds was to visit my favorite places at a time when the rest of them had the good sense to stay away. Even 20 years ago, for example, summer throngs at the Grand Canyon were more than I could endure. So my buddy Tynes and I decided to make a trip out West in late December. I drove a little convertible sports car then, just perfect for winter driving in the Rocky Mountains, and so we headed west from Kentucky, full of excitement and anticipation. on It was somewhere in eastern Colorado, I think, when a blizzard reduced our visibility to fifty feet and the temperature inside my little car hovered around five below zero (it was 37 below outside), that we began to question our choice of a vehicle for the trip. Still, we pushed on. When we finally reached the Grand Canyon, we were delighted to find the campground at the South Rim empty. Tynes and I almost felt guilty that we had this lovely place to ourselves among tall Pondorosa Pines and a polished winter sky. We didn't realize, at the moment, that we simply were the only humans on the face of the earth stupid enough to zoant to camp out on the 27th of December. We figured that out shortly after sunset. The temperature started to plunge and, being the cowards we were, Tynes and I headed for the Bright Angel Lodge. We lingered by the massive stone fireplace and nursed a cup of coffee as long as we could but, finally, the desk clerk urged us to leave. He thought we were hippies. Back at the campground, I put on every item of clothing I'd brought along I looked like a mummy. Tynes built a fire directly in front of the tent, so close, in fact, I worried that we might both go up in flames. But after some consideration, we decided immolation might not be such a bad way to end it all Finally, around ten o'clock, 1 crawled into my pitiful little kapok Scars Roebuck sleeping bag and tried to fall asleep. I struggled through the night. I had never felt such cold in my life. I kept tossing in my bag just to keep the circulation going in my arms and legs. I thought about the real possibility that my ears might freeze and fall off and I passed a small amount of time, at least, trying to imagine myself with no ears at all. Finally, though I could see no hint of dawn, I felt we'd survived the ordeal and was ready to drive back to the lodge for a hearty breakfast. "Hey Tynes," I called out, "Are you ready to head over to Bright Angel for some coffee and eggs?" "You idiot," he replied, "It's only quarter to eleven." I'd been in the tent for 45 minutes. By morning the temperature fell to fifteen below and it turned out to be one of the longest nights of my life. But now that it's a part of my distant past one of the happiest. 1-- 70 well-deserv- ed My first trip to Moab, a few years later, was similar. I drove a VW Squarcback at the time, an evil little machine that tortured me at every opportunity. Leaving L.A. I discovered that the heater didn't work, just as I headed north into the Four Comers' worst winter in a hundred years (Old timers will tell you there hasn't been a worse winter since '72-7- 3 either). As I descended from Blue Hill into the Moab Valley, frost began to build on the inside of my windshield and I had to scrape and drive at the same time. I finally reached Moab and stopped at Jack West's Chevron for gas, almost too stiff to of the car. For some reason I out get was determined to make it to Grand Junction that night, and the sun was setting fast. So I two at Walker cans of Stemo bought Drug, lit them, and placed them on the floor board between my foot. At least it kept the windshield from freezing up. have a car with a heater now and a good sleeping bag that keeps me warm, even when it's below zero. And when it's really I |
