THE STORY BEHIND BOMBAY BEACH

A SINGLE FROM BONA FIDE - OUT NOW

I was in a bit of a panic.

I wrote a song for the upcoming Slim Man Bona Fide CD, an instrumental I titled Snidely Whiplash. It was what we in show biz call “a working title.” 

Meaning it was a temporary name to be changed later. When I first wrote the song I thought of Snidely Whiplash, a cartoon villain from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Not sure why…

Snidely Whiplash was a bad dude. His thing was tying women to train tracks. And when the approaching train was about to run the girl over, Dudley Do Right, the good guy, would swoop in and save the day. Naming a song after a guy who ties women to train tracks didn’t seem like such a great choice. 

I can see it now, I release a song named Snidely Whiplash and suddenly, I’m being chased down the street by women bearing torches and Tasers screaming, “There he is! Get him! Slim Man advocates tying women to railroad tracks and must be stopped!”

So I decided to change the name from Snidely Whiplash, to…

I didn’t know what. Maybe a name that had a Palm Springs vibe. So, I looked on the internet, and went through site after site, and finally found the Top 5o Things to See in Palm Springs. At the very bottom of the list was Bombay Beach.

I liked the name. I liked the alliteration. And in general, I like the word “beach.” Beaches are happy places. So, I decided to call my new Bona Fide musical masterpiece Bombay Beach. I emailed the sound engineer after midnight and told him to retitle the song. Then I started reading about Bombay Beach…

Bombay Beach is on the Salton Sea. In the 1960s, the Salton Sea was supposed to be a luxury resort, with water skiing and fishing and swimming and birdwatching. Builders started building, folks started buying lots. It looked like it was gonna be the next Lake Tahoe. And then…The Salton Sea dried up. 

Heat from the desert made the water evaporate. Runoff from agriculture started polluting the sea. And there was no new water flowing into the Salton Sea. Fish started dying, the shores began receding, and it became uninhabitable.

Sonny Bono, a California congressman who used to be part of the Sonny and Cher duo, tried to get Congress to make things better, but nothing happened. The beat goes on…

And now? The article said it was a ghost town. I decided to find out for myself. Just to make sure Bombay Beach wasn’t home to a religious cult or a group of bank robbers or villains who tied women to railroad tracks.

So I got up before the sun and drove down Highway 111. As I approached the Salton Sea, the sun started rising on my left. To my right were a few state parks. They were still open but looked shabby and run-down and overgrown with shrubbery. 

I saw old road signs advertising liquor and bait and sporting goods. There was a faded almost illegible sign encouraging folks to buy seaside lots. $6350 with only $500 down!

There was the Salton Sea on my right, and a set of railroad tracks on my left. And not much else. Nobody on the road. Nobody on the beach. No boats on the water. I saw a sign that said Welcome to Bombay Beach. I turned down a dusty, sandy road…

It was eerie. The place looked desolate. There was a billboard with women skiing, looked like it was from the 1960s. There was a place called the Ski Inn that had a mural of Anthony Bourdain on the outside wall. Apparently, Anthony had gone there for a patty melt back in 2008. 

I got out of the car to take some photos, and when I got back in, there were hundreds of bugs all over the windows. Green bugs with clear wings, somewhere in size between a gnat and a fly. There was a stench in the air, smelled like old fish and swamp water. I drove down to the beach. There were abandoned trailers and houses along the way, graffiti all over.

When I got to the beach, I was surprised to see a lot of art installations. There was a huge cement star, perched on iron stakes stuck in the sand. There was a car cut in segments, one layered on top of the other, right on the beach. Hundreds of bales of hay were laid out on the shore, spray-painted gold, forming a long, elaborate maze.

I drove around the deserted town as the sun was rising. I saw a guy on a bicycle, and nobody else. It made me kinda sad…it was such a pretty place. And it has fallen on tough times.

But I liked the name! And there were no religious cults or gangs of bank robbers. But there was a set of railroad tracks that were still in use…Just in case Snidely Whiplash needed a place to tie up his latest victim.

I left Bombay Beach with lots of cool photos. My favorite was the one of the Bombay Beach Drive In. Which was an art exhibit with old cars stuck in the sand and a tractor trailer as the movie screen.

I ended up including that photo in the artwork for the new Slim Man Bona Fide CD.

If it goes to number one, I’m gonna save the Salton Sea.

Or at least go to the Ski Inn for a patty melt!