Last night, I was looking for a picture of Meteor Crater to put on my other blog, South By Southwest, and I came across the one seen above. So, I was sitting there looking at it and it occurred to me that there was something odd about the depiction. Then it came to me. See, there is already a crater there made by one meteor, and now, here comes another one! In the exact same spot! Holy Shit! The people who did the artwork for the website must know something. Maybe they are Seers or Shamans and can predict the future! But when is this "second strike" going to happen? Jan and I are going to this place in a couple of months, but I don't want to be within 500 miles of it if there's a chance of this shit happening.
Anyway, I was looking up some information on the crater, being certain to check that bastion of all truthiness, Wikipedia, and came across some interesting things. The place was originally named Canyon Diablo Crater (which translates to "The Devil's Asshole") by some Eurotrash who were wandering around in the desert looking for a Jamba Juice stand. Around 1900 or so, some dude named Barringer hears about it and checks it out. He figures that a humongous alien iron ball made the crater and that the iron ball must be in there somewhere. Now, I guess iron is really hot shit at that time and he has an idea that he wants to make all-iron cars that get crappy gas mileage, or something. So, he buys it from the Indians with a combination of "wampum", "firewater" and casino licenses. But, the joke's on him! Turns out that the big iron loogie vaporized on impact and turned into an "iron mist" that spread for miles, which must have been a real mess to clean up. So, he tries desperately to think of other ways to make some money off of the crater, including renting it out for children's parties, but nothing works. And so, pissed off and depressed, he dies of a massive coronary several years later. A sad tale indeed.
I found out something else interesting about the crater. In 1964, two guys decided to fly their plane into it for some unknown reason, but were unable to fly out again because of "tractor beams", later amended to "down drafts" by the U.S. Air Force. So, these idiots end up just flying around inside the crater until their gas runs out and they crash. Now I have put together a short, one-act play of how this happens. Opening Scene: Two guys named Fred and Charlie are sitting in a dusty airport on their 18th beer. Fred says to Charlie "Hey Charlie, let's get in the plane and go over and fly into that big hole in the ground". Charlie: "Capital idea old chum!" Scene Two: Charlie: "Boy Fred, it sure is fun flying around in this crater, but we should leave before someone gets our license number and reports us to the authorities." Fred: "Good idea! Whoa dude! I can't get out, we must be in some kind of tractor beam!" Charlie: "Let's fly around until we run out of gas!" Fred: "Good idea!" Scene 3: Plane: "KEEERAAAASSHH!"
One last thing. Some pals of mine and I visited the crater in 1972, and I decided to crawl down inside of it for some reason. I got about 200 feet down and this guard started yelling at me to "Get out of the hole!" I thought "Hole?" But it gave me an idea. What if I could buy the place and rename it "Rob's Hole".
I bet I'd get tons of visitors.
Well, it has now become the new daily routine for me to attempt to drink my coffee, have my morning cigarette, and generally begin to feel alive while checking email--when suddenly S starts yelling from the other room "OMG my father is hilarious" and explodes into a frenzy of excited quotations from one of your posts.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I had to subscribe. If nothing else, so I would know what he was talking about before he go too far into a sentence and I could say "yes, Rob's hole, hilarious" and continue drinking my coffee in peace.
I have to say, it seems you have found your calling.
And I'm back to my coffee while he giggles to himself in the other room. At least now I'm in on the joke.