Kevin Key of the Bombay Beach Report TikTak is our guest on this episode. Learn a little of the history of the Salton Sea here, and be sure to follow Kevin for much more.Â
Topics include: microphone correction, guest, Kevin Key, Bombay Beach, Salton Sea, RV down by the Lake, TikTak, banned from Facebook and IG, living off grid, desert, documentary social media video, being recognized from social media, Landers, abandoned buildings turned into art, videos about exploring abandoned places, Sears corporate building, gold mine, familiar faces, stealing guests from Uncle, unique aesthetic, the voice, comedy, desert people, heat, caller, San Diego, luxury resort on Salton Sea, salt and algae blooms, floods, International listeners, drinking water, honey wagon, solar panels, AC, RV life, peak season for visitors, more tourists in area now, see it to believe it, Niland, unincorporated places, Slab City, Salvation Mountain, drop the day to get to the desert, mud volcanos, Chocolate Mountains bombing range, lava, Imperial County poverty, agriculture, lithium mining, boating, salt water, water toxicity debate, hot decaf coffee, iced coffee is good but not hot coffee, lattes, energy drinks, BBAC, Flickr, New Year’s Revolution
Kevin’s links
Kevin Key Photography – Kevin’s photography website
TikTak – watch Kevin’s videos on TikTok
YouTube – Slworking 2 on YouTube
Flickr – How we used to share photos online
X – be sure to follow Kevin on X
Watch the video version of this broadcast.
Read the transcript of this episode as transcribed by YouTube.
You are listening to uncle thebroadcast. My name is Aaron. I’m the nephew ma. Here with me is the star of the show uncle. Hello ladies and gentlemen. 378.We are on. This is exciting. Uncle you guys. What happened?Aaron. Hold on. Hold on. You are not on your right mic.Oh, everything went wrong there. Yeah. Okay, that’s cool. Well, that’s fine. Check this out. Watch what I can do.Yeah. I don’t know. I’m going to uh switch your mic.Oh, yeah. Watch this. Oh, wow. Digital wizardry I can do right now because you hear us this way, but haveyou heard us this way? How about that? Is that better? There you go.There you go. There’s the warm. Yeah, that sounds a lot better. Ah, cool. Okay, cool. So, keep it onthat. And do not touch any of the buttons there, sidekick, cuz I don’t want to get in the middle of you playingbuttons while I’m talking or he’s talking. We don’t want anybody get hurt, uncle. Yeah. So, hold on and stop. Let the mando the talking. Let the man do the talking. What man? I believe I’m not finished with myinstruments yet. You’re standing on talking again. I believe now we have uma guest on my on the show and it’s uh on the 378thepisode. Here he is. Um Kevin Ke. KevinKeith here. Yeah. How you go? Welcome Kevin. Welcome Kev. How’s it going? Hello. Hey, thanks.Great. Just out here chilling. Maybe chilling isn’t the right word cuz it’s still like around 95 degrees Fahrenheit, butout here on the beach in Bombay Beach. Oh, yeah. On the beach. A little too dark for you to see, but the salt andsea is maybe a few hundred feet beyond me. Yeah. So, you’re on the beach. So, does thatmean you’re uh the house is I’m at my camp? Yeah. Oh, you’re camping. My houseum permanently camping. I I camp here full time. So, it’s it is my house. My house is on wheels.Oh. Um I don’t live in a I like to tell people I don’t live in a van down by the river. I live in an RV down by the lake.Oh, yeah. There we go. And so I guess we could just start this by uh saying uncleI found Kevin on Tik Tok. You recently, you know, I know the fella. Don’t have to excuseit. So I kick or I know the man cuz I I follow him two places.Okay. And he we had a discussion and but but I followed him on the Tic Tacand on Instagram. My uh one I shared Nana’s thing with. II seen him on that. So, I’ve seen him before because I I recognize the faces. When Ilook at the things, I look at the faces of him and boy, I’m going to beat him. I’mgoing to beat him to the punch. So, I kicked I beat you to the punch. I knew who it was. It was this man.Nice. Well done. Yeah. Yeah. So, why don’t you tell people about your your tic tac, uhKevin? What? Yeah. Yeah. We tic tac. Yeah. So, you know, I’m still relativelynew to Tik Tok. Um, for the longest time, I devoted most energy to Facebookand then later Instagram and everybody’s like, “Oh, you got to check out Tik Tok.” So, I finally did, but I wasn’treally that active. I would post a video maybe a few times a year. That’s how bad it was. Um, anyways, all of a sudden,back in early June, I got banned from Instagram and Facebook. I’d beenwith Facebook since like 2008. Instagram obviously a little bit soon. Yeah. But probably Instagram since shortlyafter it came out and they said I violated their terms of use and all this, but they wouldn’t say what. Andthere’s no customer service to call. You can send an email and they don’t respond. There’s no chat. There’s no phone number to call. But anyways, so Ihave not I’ve lost all those years of photos and I mean I have the photos and videos backed up, but it’s you know thecomments and everything else. That’s how I found back since since June and so then I decided to go full speed ahead with TikTok and also YouTube and here I am and you know I had kind of just barely done anything on Tik Tok until recently butum I hope that answers your question. Yeah. Yeah. I you want to say more what more what myTik Tok is about. So um about a year a little over a year and abit over a year and a half ago I moved full-time to a place called Bombay Beach. Um I’ve just become obsessed withthis this town. It’s this small a little over 200 people town in the middle of a desert next to a lake in the desertwhich is really bizarre, the salt and sea. And on my Tik Tok it pretty muchshows, you know, sometimes I’ll show when I’m out doing real estate photo shoots, which is how I earn a living,but most of the time it’s my life here, my daily life here in Bombay Beach. Yeah. Yeah. Andand I live off the grid. I live completely off the grid. I have solar powered air conditioning and lights andeverything else. Yeah. And that and that’s that’s how I I found you. Like I I we were just umYou found him. I did. You could have told me about him and I could have told you way where he been.Okay. So So Uncle found him. I’m sorry. I found him. He was with me.I got you one. Well Well, I mean Uncle he’s a fellow desert dweller. He’s out there in theSolven Sea out beyond India, right? I never knew all year round. I never knew that I’d get him on a show.But but though but though I’ve been following him on what he was talkingabout, buddy, you got kicked out of that. But I uh was following him. That’s how I knewthat’s how I know you. I found you. Nice. And I found you. Nice. So found you. Andyeah, there’s quite a few people that come out here to Bombay Beach and they’re wait, wait, you look familiar. They’re like, are you that guy onTikTok? I go, yeah, that’s me. Yep. Awesome. But like I said, I what I like is like I you know, I first discoveredthis place way back in 2008. So I would go visit, you know, it was about a two and a half hour drive from where I livedin San Diego. And I would go visit a few times a year, but then it started being a few times a month, like every month. And then finally, I’m like, I need tomove out here. I love this place so much. Why don’t I live here instead ofcoming here every other weekend? And here I am. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. We’venever been out to the Sultan Sea. I’ve never made it out that way again. No, cuz you’re busy at your at yourother place. Yeah, he’s cuz he’s got a place in the uhin Landers. See, and he goes back and forth to that. That’s a different direction. But it’s a complete different directionwhere you’re at and it’s near. No, but it’s not like it would be the end of the world to to drive out here,though. Oh, is it? No, it’s not. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Like I want to make it out that way sometime. It’s not like it’s notlike you live in, you know, upstate New York or something where it would be a bigger deal to come out here. Absolutely. No, not a big deal at all.So So yeah, I or you live in some other country even like Yeah. You’re not It’s aYou could do it the drive, you know. Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, it’s just odd that we haven’t made it out to the saltand sea, but man, you make you in your videos, you make it look appealing. I’ll say that. It’s like, man, that you’re inlike some abandoned building. Yeah. And that’s the thing though, like to me it it that it is. I mean, what Iportray in my videos is how I feel. And that’s the thing, like I love this place. It’s, you know, you go to some places or maybe a lot of places you seeabandoned buildings and a lot of times people immediately think, oh, well, you know, they’re going to get robbed or,you know, something carjacked or something. But out here, like the abandoned buildings are part of the vibe and people have turned them into art.But I also like this is a perfectly safe place to visit. You know, whether just visit, you know, if you just want tocome come here as a tourist, it’s perfectly safe. Like the abandoned buildings are preserved as part of thevibe. What makes this funky place amazing? Yeah. It’s one of many things. It’s just a really creative community, avery caring community. I mean, this is like my second family out here. Yeah. It’s interesting. I’ve noticedlike a real and maybe it’s the algorithm uh giving me what I want, but I’venoticed a lot of videos on Tik Tok and YouTube where people are exploring sort of a lot oftimes desert or sort of out of the way abandoned places. Oh, so that’s that’s been a thing longbefore Tik Tok and all that. Um the kind of the generic term and it’s kind of a misnomer sometimes is urban explorationand that’s where it kind of started but we’ll we’ll use that term even if it’s exploring you know something out here inthe desert you know which is the furthest from an urban envir but that’s been a thing I mean it was a thing butthere was no like really clubs for it or anything back then but when I was growing up like I’ve loved to exploreabandoned buildings since I was a kid. Yeah. And now there’s whole YouTube accounts and websites and everything alldedicated. That’s a very popular um hobby. Yeah, I agree. To go in and explore anything from outhere a small little, you know, trailer that’s all beaten upto I watch other people’s videos where these people go in and they’re able to explore abandoned skyscrapers a lot oftimes where the lights are still working and all that. Yeah. I I’ve seen a popular place where several people went is the Sears Robuxold corporate headquarters. Oh, yeah. The with the art deco building. Yeah. Yeah.Which I’ve heard in recent times though that they’ve added some security and all that, but people still sneak in andthen, you know, they hear the security guards coming and they go out a different door and stuff. But yeah. Yeah, that was that’s a really goodexample and I’ve seen some recent videos on that. Yeah, the art deco. Um, Sears, West CoastSears headquarters. I grew up in Chicago where back in the day there was the skyscraper called the Sears Tower, whichis now the Willis Tower. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so like that was like the really more thatwas I mean the one here on the West Coast is the more famous What part of it’s like somewhere around LA, right?Uh, wait, what building are we talking about again? The the Art Deco Sears building. Oh, that is in LA. I didn’t I for somereason I thought that building was in Illinois too. I didn’t realize that was out here. No, no, no. So the more famous SearsTower, which was like the world’s tallest skyscraper back in the day, was the Sears Tower. Now it’s called the Wills Tower. But I know somewhere insomewhere outside just outside of LA is an art deco Sears building where it hasa green neon sign on top and and people sneak in, explore. But um that Sears Tower is abandoned, but not quite cuzthe utilities are still on and they have security. this the what was originally a Sears Tower in Chicago got bought bysome other company called and they call it the Willis Tower, but it’s not definitely not abandoned. Yeah.But anyways, I’ve been exploring abandoned buildings though since I was a kid and I still love doing it as an adult.Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I know. I’ve always loved that kind. It’s just the curiosity of what’s around you. Have you ever goneIt is. It Yeah. Yeah. No. No. Go ahead, Kevin. Go ahead. I’m Oh, yeah. So, I’ve gone in Yeah. I’vegone into plenty of abandon. never had runins with fort I’ve been I try to be careful I’ve never had runins withsecurity the police or you know some tweaker hiding out fortunately good u but yeah I love exploring abandbuildings and and some of the more extreme thing I did it’s not so much a building but um I want to say maybe fouror five years ago is I went 750 ft below ground up in Tikopa hot springs um inCalifornia and explored an abandoned gold mine and even rode um a mine cart that was like over 750 ft below ground.Oh wow. I mean, if you want for it, I can send you some clips of, you know, like that and me out on my boat at the Sultan Seaand other things, you know, later on if you want to use this. Um, I I like see them.I like the idea of it, but I’ I’ve got the the imagery uh goinggood. I I like what we got now, but what I will do, okay, cool, is say that people, if they have TikTok,they need to follow you. So yeah, that would be awesome. That would be awesome. Like I said, I just lovespreading the word about Bombay Beach. And like I said, I just I love this place. That’s so cool. Uncle, what what do youthink of his TikTok? Because you’ve seen the videos. What what’s your thoughts on it? He very good actoring his pictures andeverything else cuz when I I saw him in these other places, he he he has his position, how hestands, and that’s the way to stand. So I know how he he cooperates and how hedoes it like he’s doing. I like the idea. You know it’s my vibe. Yeah. Yeah. So I when when when you were firstseen the when I first seen you I said who this guycan’t. Oh and then I I followed you you know kept following you and thencome to turn around it was you and my show. I mean it was a turnaround. This iscrazy. I was turned around from wait a minute I recognize that man.The face was familiar to me and and he was and he was trying to say we haveKevin what’s his name and I’m and I’m saying I knew that fell. I had him inthe thing and right away I knew it and I that was you should say that was one of minethat you stole one of mine that you stole once again. I stole one from uncle. You stole another one from me. that linecuz I was following him way back back in the day back when he had a problem with histhing. Uh when I was when I saw you and I was following you on my otherFacebook, right? Not was Facebook, the other the other one. And I used to be primarily photos.Yeah. And then and that was the thing. And then once I lost I had to I lost access to myFacebook and Instagram. I had to quickly kind of change course and and focus moreon video. And I’ve had to just kind of ramp that up really quick because I’m primarily a still photographer, but asyou can see, I’ve in the last few months, I’ve gotten into the video game and I’ve kind of had to kind of justsurvive. Yeah. No, you’re doing good. And as Uncle said, the aesthetic of your uh of your pieces, there’s thisvery specific look you have to it. Thanks. I appreciate that. They are. They do.I mean, I knew it as soon as I saw the man’s face. Oh, wait a minute. I seen him before.And boom, it it came just what you guys are talking about. Do you see what’s happening, though? Kevin is getting recognized with petourists coming to his area. They They’ve seen him. I’m telling you. Oh, yeah. They have. Yeah, I get that.And then it’s funny cuz so I live on the east side of the salt and sea but on the west side Salt and City likeyou know I’ll go to the Jack in the Box there and the person behind the counter be like wait you’re that guy up on Facebook or whatever.Yeah. I tell you something. You want to get popular? Keep doing what you’re doing. That ishow you get going because that’s how I got going. Just showing my facemy voice and boom it went flying. I mean that’s the way Oh yeah. You have a really unique Youhave a really unique voice, too. Well, yeah, that that does it, too. I mean, uncle the podcast, it’s all about thevoice, right? It’s the voice. Oh, it’s got to be. Yeah, that’s obvious. I mean, dude, people don’t want to hearhalf the time. Some that are serious want to watch his shows, but some of them that don’t care abouthis shows comes over to me. Sometimes you want to laugh. Yeah. Sometimes you want to laugh. So, that’s what this show is all about. Oh, yeah.Carefree atmosphere, joking around, having fun. Yeah, that’s what I love about the beds. Too bad we didn’t therewasn’t more sunlight right now. Um cuz I could walk around with the camera and show you around the beach, but you know,of course, it’s dark now. So, I just have I have a light on me. Obviously, you can see me on this couch and I’m sitting out on the beach here in BombayBeach. How’s the temperature? Is it nice and cool, I assume, right now? Oh, no. No, it’s about Well, compared tothe daytime, yeah, it’s still about 90 something, but there’s a breeze right now. But the breeze isBut I’m a desert person. You like the um and it’s not too humid. It was alittle humid earlier, but it and earlier in the week, but not so much now. You’re like sidekick here. You’re adesert person. There’s your buddy. But I always tell people I’d rather if I had to choose between it being 110° orbeing 40°, I’ll choose 110. Whereas I don’t like to bundle up. People say you can bundle up, but youknow, I don’t I like to be in just a t-shirt and shorts and that’s it. Yeah.I don’t want I don’t want to have to bundle up and put all kinds of layers on. And yeah, this is such a flowingconversation uh guys that I didn’t even want to interrupt. But you do have a call has been waiting.Okay, we got we didn’t even know. Go ahead. Go ahead and pin them on. I’m sorry to tell you.Good. Oh wow. One second. I don’t think you guys out the I don’t think you guys gave out thephone number because we had uh we had discussion talking and thenI’ve always been slightly frantic getting everything together, but it’s working out great and we do take calls. So, if anybodywants to call 319-5275016, that’s the call number. Please do callin and join us and ask our guest Kevin Key a question. Yeah.So, I’m surprised you didn’t say that off the bat. Did you say you had one caller waiting?He did. Yeah, I do have one waiting, but once again, 319-5275016and I’m going to go away. Okay, cool. All right. All right, Uncle, we bringing this caller on or what? Bring a call on. I’m talking to myguest, so go ahead and ask what you want to say. Ask them. Go ahead.This is Jimmy. Yes.How’s it going? Little hard to hear. Oh, hearing enough. Oh,yeah. You got the He’s talking to you. I think we can a little better. It was a little quiet byYeah, it’s a little It’s really hard to hear, actually.You can hear me?Yes. Yeah, I hear I can hear you now. Hello. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Uh,well, Kevin, you’re kind of doing uh what I’d like to do. Uh, nice.I’d like to buy a tour bus and head out west. Yeah,it’s kind of like it’s it’s the life I should have done years ago and here I am.And I Yeah. Um, I can ask how old are you and where areyou from? So, I am, believe it or not, um, 53 years old. People say I look a lotyounger than that. To me, age is just a number. Um, before I started living here in BombayBeach, um, I lived in various neighborhoods of San Diego. I never actually lived like on the coast. SanDiego County is a huge county, but usually inland. And in my last several years in San Diego, um more like towardsthe mountains in a place called Ramona. Um now, prior to that though, um untilthe late 80s. Prior to that though, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. So most of my life has been in Chicago,then San Diego, and now Bombay Beach here in Southern California. about anhour southeast of an hour from Palm Springs and about an hour north of ElCentro. That’s nearby. If anybody out there wants an idea, it’slike to where um we’re about same age. I grew up grew up.So, you grew up in the Midwest, too? Yeah. I don’t know what I don’t know what it is. What the I’ve always been drawn tothe West, even though I haven’t really been there. Uh, I mean, I’ve been to California and I was plenty, but I meanthe real west. Yeah, I think everybody is and especially if you know obviously especially not being from the westbecause you’re you know everybody know I mean when I was a kid growing up in Illinois and stuff everybody’s heard youknows from when they’re a kid about you know the west whether it’s California you go further west to Hawaii and it’slike you know everybody dreams of eventually going there someday I would think or maybe not everybody alot of people especially if they’re somewhere where the weather isn’t so mild like the Midwest or like theNortheast you Especially in the middle of winter, maybe when there’s 3 ft of snow on theground and the roads are all iced up, you know, people are going to be thinking about, man, I wish I could livemove out west. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s the dream moving out to uh the salt and sea. Itused to be a luxury resort town, isn’t that right, Kenny? Oh, yeah. Definitely how much it’schanged is Yeah, there used to be um yacht clubs and golf courses and all that. Um, a lot of there were certaincelebrities I think like the Beach Boys, um, Frank Sinatra or a few that come offthe top of my head that um, some of those either belong to yach clubs out here and or had vacation homes out here.Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then over the years when the salt and sea got too salty and the algaeblooms sucked up all the oxygen, it’s a combination those two, the fish started dying off. this once highly sought afterresort in the middle of the desert. I mean, it was like a Palm Springs or a Las Vegas but with a big giant lake.The year round boating and fishing, water skiing, all that. But anyways, imagine all of the sudden though,hundreds of million, you know, millions of rotting fish washing ashore. And that’s bad any time of year, but letalone, you know, when it’sund 100 something degrees outside. Um, there was that. And then, believe itor not, there were some hurricanes that made it inland in the ‘7s. It did.And it seems ironic about now, but it what really killed the area. It was starting to go downhill with the fish t,but really killed it were these catastrophic floods. Even though right now we would love to have more water outhere in the 70s that destroyed a lot of the resorts and the marinas and whatnot.And I think that was the, you know, a huge final nail in the coffin for the area as the salt, the old salt and seawhere it was luxury and all that. Um, and then, but yeah, for the longest timeuntil the late ‘9s, early 2000s in Bombay Beach, the problem was there was too much water in the salt and sea andthey had to build this diker levy around the town and that still stands today. It’s it’s totally worthless now. Um,because now the salt and sea is drying up. there’s not too much, you know, there’s too little water. But yeah, it’s um it’s fascinating. And so when I firstcame here in 2008, it was to check out the abandoned buildings and all that. And there wasn’t much activity on therewere still though plenty of people persevering. And you know, there’s something about Bombay Beach. They call it the Bombay Beach Vortex. And youeither love it or you hate it. And a lot of people are pleasantly surprised. They come out and they’re like, “Oh, some friends want to drag me out here. Theywant to go look at some abandoned buildings and some decaying lake.” But then they come out here and they startmeeting some of the people and seeing it and and a lot of times even those naysayers, you know, go to likes. Well,you know, other people just come out here and they go, “Oh, well, it’s hot. There’s rundown buildings. What’s like about this place?” But you either loveit or you hate it. I mean, um, but what started happening? Sorry, Kevin. Ask you a quick question.Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I I got that. But I want to ask you a quick question, but also let know that your international listenersare in Germany and uh uh Canada tonight according to the stream. But anyway,the thing I want to ask you about though is I’m listening to this description. I’m thinking about it and uh I’m aNortheast guy and so was you know, you talked about Sinatra. He was from New Jersey also.But anyway, u what cracks me up is though, don’t youhave problems with water out there? like drinking water. I mean, isn’t that Yeah. So, that’s the thing where So nowwhere I’m camping right out here on the beach, I’m I want to say I’m probably acouple thousand feet from the town. Now, the town out here, despite being this very remote quarter mile square on amap, um does um does have city water, um city sewer, and electric.Now, I don’t have that out on the Playa where I am, too. So I once or twice, acouple times a month, sometimes more often in the summer, I have a 50-gallon water tank in the bed of my truck and Ifill it up at a friend’s house in town. Oh. Um, and as far as emptying out thetoilet, I do the same thing. I have a separate tank that I tow behind my truck. They call it a honey wagon in theRV community, but that’s for basically hauling the [ __ ] away, literally.Oh, that um now air conditioning. Um, I have enough solar. I have so many solarpanels on there and some high-capacity lithium batteries that I’m able to run my AC and stay nice and cool withouthaving to have any without having to run a generator or have any otherwise any electric service out here.Oh, off the grid. That’s always been the ultimate thing with solar. Like I mean for years peoplein RVs have powered their lights, you know, or maybe their TV or they chargedtheir phones with solar, but what was a real game changer is now we’re in the day and age where it’s becomingaffordable where it’s not totally unaffordable to produce enough solar to run your AC. The drawback is you got tobe someone that’s not so much a nomad, but me, I’ve pretty much been staying put here in Bombay Beach. Um, I havemost of my solar panels are on the ground. Although you can get enough solar to power AC for a reasonableprice. Now, you can’t fit that amount of panels on the roof of an RV yet. Oh. So, like you need to set up a So, it’sit’s not practical for somebody that wants to hit the road and and be in the desert when it’s 110 out. Now, the thingis most people that are driving like a school bus, what they call schoolies or a van, this time of year, they gosomewhere where the weather’s milder. me, I stay put and I figured out how to air condition my place. But a lot ofthose people, they don’t bother to come out here, you know, when it’s that hot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s uh not peakseason as they call it, is it, Uncle? No, it will be it’ll be peak season starting around October and then goinguntil around late April. It goes that long. So, you do noticelike Yeah. Oh, yeah. You notice a lot of people coming in for tourism. Um, moreand more. Yeah. Oh, definitely more and more overdue. It’s like way more. We do. And, you know, and I will say andI cuz I live down on the beach, you know, some people, but like um the majority of tourists are veryrespectful, surprisingly respectful of the art installations. I feel like a lot of the art out here, if it were putalmost anywhere else, sadly, people would have would heavily vandalize it. Yeah. Yeah. But I’ve noticed people here, there’s acertain vibe to this place that people are here and they come here and they admire the art versus destroying it forthe most part. Yeah. And I mean, I’m sure we can credit that a lot to the media, social mediaand stuff. There’s all these YouTube videos, all these Tik Tok videos. Oh, yeah. I mean, my mind included it,but Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, so that’s a good thing, wouldn’t you say, that like people are It’s gaining interest becauseof that. Oh, it totally is. It totally is. And my thing is that’s a good thing because themore people find out about this place and then they see in, you know, they seemy photos, but they also see in person how amazing the sunsets look and all that, the more people that can see thebeauty of this place and then possibly see the potential, the more people are going to be on board with someday mayberestoring the salt and sea. Yeah. Because otherwise, prior to social media and prior to recent years, mostpeople either never heard of the salt and sea or if they did, it was some news article talking about it being apost-apocalyptic ghost town next to a toxic lake. And people are like, why would they want to spend any money tosave that? But when people come out here and they just they see the the nice calmwater and they see the amazing sunsets or sunrises, you know, it makes them more obvious you’re going to appreciatethe beauty of this place and see the potential. The the point the point you saying thepeople and to go out there the point I would say thisyou got to go out to the areas to see itthen you’ll believe it. Otherwise, yeah, you’re saying they’re saying, “Oh,they’re saying that and this and that, this and that and and they don’t even give it come out.” So, what do theyknow? I mean, that’s is what my point is. The old see it to believe it scenario. Yeah. To see it.It is. It is definitely You got to see it to believe it. Yeah. That just it that’s the bottom line.Now, the the town out there is Ni Island. Is that right? Well, yeah. So the the town so BombayBeach is is kind of unofficially a town but the mailing address is actually Nandand Nand the the main drag or downtown for lack of a better term. It’s it’s asmall town but the main drag of is Nand and I want to say that’s about about 1212 or 12 or 13 miles south of here on the highway. Yeah. And uh um but Bombay Beach, our million, we’renot we’re known as an unincorporated community of Imperial. Like Bombay Beach is what I learn is just what they call acensus designated place. It’s it’s a neighborhood name, but it’s it’s notwhat you would put on an official mailing address. Although although a lot of people do put Bombay Beach on theirmailing address and the post office delivers it, but technically technically we’re nand. Okay. Okay.Even though the community is called Bombay Beach, it’s not an independently incorporated town. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s uh I believeCan you imagine if you had a cabin out there? Well, yeah. I Well, yeah. I mean, whoa. You’ll be going back andforth in two directions. Kevin’s making Kevin’s making it out there.I mean, I love it. I’m I love it out here. Yeah, it’s really cool. Made it work. I see all the videos. Uncle, we got tomake it out there. There’s all sort of crazy stuff. Slab City, right Kevin? Slab City. Yeah. Yeah. Slab City is pretty crazy.And then um next to it is Salvation Mountain. And yeah, what you’re going to have to do,Sidekick, is this. What’s that? Sank a plan to do what you’re sayingto get out to these places and just let’s go. Drop the day.What do we have to do today? Well, dropping it and let’s go do them. Yeah, I mean that’s theLet me know if you want to meet up. Yeah, let me know a bit in advance though because I’m not here. Well,I come back here every day, but there’s some days where I’m away working in San Diego or Burggo Springs.We’ll we’ll give you a ring. We’ll give you a ring when we want to come up. Yeah. Go. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.Yeah, that’d be cool. Yeah. Someday when I retire, I’ll be out here 24/7, which I mean, I’m pretty close.But yeah, you’re getting there, huh? All right. That’s I’m already retired. I mean, yeah. I gotto wait. I just say I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. I mean, you’re already there now andyou’re spending a bulk of your time. So, I mean, Oh, yeah. Yeah, I am. I could see you and him gettingtogether. K and you getting together cuz I You’llbe like a payer. Something like that to go to desert people. Oh, hey, we got two desertpeople. Oh, yeah. Let go. There they go. Yeah. Yeah, there’s so many interesting to see out here like you’ve probably seen in my videos like the mud volcanoesand all this other stuff and that geyser where they had to move the the highway and yeah,I got to go back to this and look at these. I got to look at this other stuff and tic tac now. Now that he started, I gotto look at it. I know that um Creative Accidents, the leader of our street team. Oh, yeah. Hesent us a link to a video that was made in the early 2000s and it was out there in the Chocolate Mountains at thebombing range and it follow Oh, nice. It’s been a while. I think I’ve seen that, but yeah.I forget what it’s called, like pickers or something. They’re they’re going in there looking for scrap metal on theactual bombing range. So, they drive in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, for those you don’t know, there’s a there’s a and it’s stillact it’s still actively used. Not all the not every day and every night, but there is Yeah. a bombing range. Umthat’s just several miles down the highway and a little bit north here and it’s called the Chocolate Mountains.Mhm. Yes. It’s crazy. I did a funny take on that in my one of my videos. I go, you know, one time Iwent to the Chocolate Mountains and I think it’s false advertising cuz the dirt doesn’t taste like chocolate.Oh wow. I think they’re called that because when you’re when I well, especially at sunset when I’m out in my boat and that light’shitting the mountains, it looks like, you know, everything from milk chocolate to dark chocolate. The mountains are definitely chocolate colored.Yeah. Oh yeah. At night especially. We went on a cruise once and we we wentto see uh oh um well fire coming out of the themountains. Oh wow. Oh yeah. A volcano. What do they call them?A volcano flying all over the place. So we went to visit and went to see that and boy and that was all black.Yeah, man. Coming down and that was a chocolate mountain, too. They just didn’t call it that, but they couldhave. Maybe they should have. Made that. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. But that was a good documentary.That was crazy. I don’t know if people are still picking the the metal out of there, but they were. And that wasOh, I’m sure they are. I’m sure they are. Yeah, the the documentary also uh was getting into how Nland is a theincome level very low there. So people are just, you know, trying Yeah, it’s a Well, the the the county ingeneral is one of the poorest counties in California. Yeah, it is the poorest county.One of them. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was I uh I uh went uh I gotresign I resigned from uh county work. I was doing counties work19 years of it. So that was Florida, right? That was in Florida. But yeah, it’s counties.I wonder what the county work is out like out there. Yeah. Yeah. Is there much county work going on out there?Well, a lot of the the biggest industry out here is still um agriculture. Oh, okay.And the reason why people wonder why they grow crops in the desert, but it’s because there can there’s multiplegrowing seasons. You can’t be growing crops in the Midwest or the East Coast in general when it’s winter time. Butout here there is no, you know, true winter time. Or not like it is in most parts of theworld. There you go. And now what about the are there now or will there be lithiummines? I heard talk of lithium mines. Yeah. So it’s been talked about a lot. So, what it is is there’s tons and tonsof I forgot the number even remotely what it is, but there’s basically a [ __ ] ton of lithium. That’s not a technicalterm obviously beneath the surface here, but it’s not in the way you think it is. It’s basically mixed in with the brineand it’s and it’s not some what it is. It’s thousands of feet below the surface. Um, it’s mixed in with thebrine and somebody years ago invented a technology to filter the lithium out ofthat. Um, but the reason why they haven’t started doing it and they’ve only been talking about it is it’s notreally all that cost effective yet. That basically the amount of effort they have to putinto extracting the lithium is only slightly less cost slightly less moneythan what they can sell the lithium for. So once they can improve that technology, they’ll be going full speedahead. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know that’s I’ve been reading about that. Yeah, that’s the main thing. Yo, and the mediakeeps talking about it, but you know, it hasn’t really happened on any meaningful scale yet, but that’s going to be thetipping. But either either the price of the price of lithium has to go back upor the cost to extract it, which is I’m not sure exactly how the process works,but basically it’s some fancy filter and it filters the lithium out of this salt water.Sure. and then they can process the lithium make berries but right now it cost almost as much to filter it as whatthey can sell it for. So it doesn’t make sense yet to the once they can get either the price of lithium goes up orthe cost to filter it out goes down then they will be doing large scale lithium. Um based on everything I heard thoughpeople that visit there will barely even know what’s going on. You’re the way they’re taking this lithium out is not atraditional formine. So there’s not going to be using bulldo bulldozers and they’re going to be carving up thelandscape and destroying the environment. They’re not going to do that if what I’ve heard is true. Thislithium is more of a lithium extraction. They’re filtering it out of water deep beneath the ground. So it’s a really interesting way ofmining. It’s a most people think mining and they think, “Oh, they’re going to they’re going to dig all these big holes in theground. They’re going to drain the salt and sea and they’re going to carve it all up.” Yeah. It’s more this lithium mine is more they’re filtering it forlack of a better term. Interesting. They’re they’re separating it. Yeah. It’s a really fascinating um process.Yeah. I didn’t I didn’t know that. Yeah. I first heard it. I thought it was traditional mining. Like there you go the mountains or something.No. It’s about as much like traditional mining as Bitcoin mining is. And if you compare that to mining gold or lead orcopper Yeah. And so people hear the term mining and most of the time Yeah. means they’re coming in, they’re boring into amountain or they’re digging into the ground, but that’s not what they’re doing in this case. So, it’s really fascinating.You were a fisherman, right, Kevin? You’re a fisherman? No. Um, I’ve never been big on fishing.I take the butt out just for the vibes, just being out there at sunset. Um, I try I fished, you know, like every kid,I went fishing as a kid, but never had much luck. And maybe I wasn’t patient enough or um myfather would say, well the you know that most of the time my bait was in the airthan it was in the water cuz I would like put the hook in and I get too impatient. No fish biting. So I’d take it out and check to make sure the baitwas okay and like apparently when I went fishing that hook spent more time out of the water than in the water. So maybeyou know, who knows? But no, like I have the boat just because I like to I just like to to cruise around for the my boatfor the fun of it. Oh well. How big of a lake is it? Is it? Yeah.How far across is it? It’s about I mean it’s shrinking but it’s still around 30 something miles byaround I want to say 12 to 15 miles. It’s still a big lake. Wow. That is big. Yeah, it’s shrinking but it for a while it’sstill going to be a huge lake. That’s crazy. It’s really interesting. Yeah, it’s a huge lake. And then umand then of course it’s salty. It’s actually more salty than the ocean now. You mean the salt? The only thing issalty is the is the beach. But now that you said that,now it’s going to go the other direction. It sounds like Oh, it’s going to No, as the salt andsea dries up, it’s getting more and more saltier. The salt, the water evaporates, but the salt sticks behind.So, but doesn’t the water have to connect to the salt or sort of last?No. So, how it got salty here is this was a um an ancient salt pit. In fact, before the salt and sea was formed, thesalt and sea was formed by accident. Um when a canal sprung a leak and theycouldn’t stop it. Um but this area was already salt pits and there were activesalt mines in the area. So that’s how it got the water gets salty as the salt was already there and the water just mixedwith the salt. Oh, there you go. Yeah. I mean in modern times the salt and seahas never been has in modern times the salt and sea as the salt and sea was never connected to the ocean.There are there’s evidence of an ancient lake lake Kawa um that was much biggerthan the salt and sea though being in this area but you know that was gazillion years ago. This has been thefirst time I heard something other than the beach was salty.You gave up with a good one. Oh, the beach is salty, but Yeah, the water is the water is more salty than the ocean. I mean, some people have saidthree times, but I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s it’s definitely far saltier than the ocean. Yeah. Yeah.You float in it. That’s what I’m I’m shocked to hear. Oh, yeah. I’ve noticed that. So, I go swimming in it from now and then, and itis it is a lot easier to float. Oh, it is. The salt will do that. And there’s adebate on a lot of people think the lake is highly toxic, but it it’s um last Iheard and this was about a year and a half ago from a state park ranger. The salt and sea now this was a year and ahalf ago. They may have things may change. I don’t know. Is generally the salt and sea is safe to swim in as longas you avoid when there’s what they call a harmful algae bloom which is a massive algae bloom and it’s festering withbacteria and all that. That’s when you wouldn’t want to go into salt and tea. Hey, when when there’s an algae balloon like that, you can see it with your eyes. Butif you see this green slime on the water, you know, that tells you you don’t need you don’t need to be ascientist to know I probably shouldn’t go swim in this. But most of the time, based on what I have been told, the saltand sea is still generally safe to swim in. Um, you don’t want to let pets in there because dogs, you know, you don’twant to drink the water, but we wouldn’t drink salt water. But they said you got to be careful with pets though sometimes becauseKevin, we we have something very important happening here. Uncle is getting a very special. What’s going on?What are we having? Uncle, we’ve have our guest. Oh, shoot. Here she goes with this hotcoffee crap. What’s going on? I told him I want something cold. Thisis not about hot coffee. What is that? Hot decaf coffee. Yeah. Okay. We have a hotSay no. We have a hot decaf coffee for uncle. Oh, no. You got to drink it all now. What is this?You said you would throw it out. Yeah. Pass it off. I don’t want to piss it off.We’re not drinking decap. We’re not drinking that. But it’s because it’s hot, right? Yes. I told you ice in it. Will youdrink it? Maybe. Yeah. Well, if we get ice in the coffee, Uncle willdrink it. I will drink it if it’s cold. There we go. Yeah. Okay. Well, okay. Okay. Well, thank you.Thank you. Thank you anyway. We appreciate that. Okay, Kevin. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. We had a lot of she uhwe had we had a conversation we had a conversation today about this hot you will never drink ahot cup of coffee. I said, “You only drink ice coffee.” Iceed coffee. And she comes in hereright now to show to have a point. Said, I said, “I told you I’m going to look atLeave it. Leave it away. Get it out of here.” And I was I told her that. Kevin, do you drink hot coffee? Yes orno? Do you? No, I don’t. I don’t like um hot coffee. I’ll have cold coffee like lattes um andthings like that, but I’ve never liked hot coffee. light a latte.I usually drink um I drink energy drinks. Oh yeah. Yeah, we get we got some I’lldrink some of the fancy. So there’s a cafe in town. It’s we call it Bbeck. It’s Bombay Beach Archer andCulture. It’s closed for the summer, but they Yeah, they make some amazing coffee. I never have my coffee hot, butI’ll have the lattes, man. Uncle, that’s exactly drinks where it’sYou just hit it. I But no, I never I’ve never drank um black hot coffee.Black coffee. A latte drink uh sugar-free latte. Sugar-free latte.Latte drink. Not hot. Not hot. Cold. That’s the one I drink. That’s what I meant at today. And youjust said You said that. Yeah. I used I don’t ever drink hot coffee. Yeah. You could have planned this thisway, uncle. Is that If she had We should have had If she’d want to make a a coffee thing,a cold cold one, I probably would drink it. Yeah, ice coffee would be good. Iceed coffee would be good.But we’re getting toward the end of the show here, so let’s make sure. Oh boy, we Okay, cool. Let’s make sure that everybody knowswhere to find Kevin here. U Tik Tok and YouTube. Um, and I’m also onFlickr. If somebody’s a more old school photographer, they would know about Flickr. But, um, most of your listenersare Yeah, I’ll get to that. F L I C Kr. It’s been around. It was around long before Facebook, Instagram, andYeah. Flicker. Flicker. I remember L Kr without the E. And that it was a photo sharing site like longbefore Facebook and any of those others. Um, but I’m most active now. Um, like I said, I got banned from Facebook andInstagram, so I’m most active on Tik Tok and YouTube. YouTube. Yeah. And people can quickly. What’s What’s up, Chuck? What’sup? What’s up, Aaron? Sorry, but really quickly, just because of the late start and then we had the little uh problem with the uhconnection. Yeah. Uh through the uh video. Yeah. Yeah. You’ve actually got a few extraminutes here. So, I know the clock would normally be put, but you have time. So, you know, use itas you Maybe what about five more minutes or so cuz I’m about ready to be done after that. Um but I can go foranother I can go for another five minutes or so though if if we got any other callers or either you have anyquestions um ask away. Yeah. Well, let’s see. Jimmy’s still on hold. Uh let’s take a look over at thephone line. And we haven’t taken another. Yeah. Yeah.By the way, we we haven’t even talked to the note. We haven’t talked to the note. The note. Oh yeah. Well, uh, maybe we’ll have todo on the next show. Yeah, I’ll have to do it on the next show because I had somebody came in and andhe’s been accustomed to mess and he just gave us a note to read.We do have Yeah. Yeah. But I might get to it next week. Yeah. Yeah. This has been a very exciting show.This has been an interesting show. And I would say so if people go on TikTok and then they just type in yourname, Kevin Key, will they find you? Um, if they Google it, they should.Otherwise, it’s um S L W O R K I N G.Okay. Uh we’ll put the link to that on Uncle. Yeah, I just Yeah, I just put the linkin there and then um mine edit edit. And the YouTube is is the same usernamebut with the number two on it. Um I had created a a YouTube account a while back and then somehow back when Ilost the password or something and I’m like, well, [ __ ] it. I’ll create a new one. and but so okay that’s why on my YouTube there’s thenumber two after my name just that’s why I see very cool the original one without the two was mebut I lost access to that way back in the day and yeah we’re definitely going to want the two we’re going to want the new contentuncle that’s on on the YouTube but on the Tik Tok no number on yeah okay coolthat’s fine that’s fine because I’m I needed a lot more on tic tac now on.Yeah, I am too. I’m trying to grow both of them, but broke it up. I mean, picked up. But Ihave a neighbor most like over next a couple houses downthat that does tick tac. And this guy here, sidekick here, nevergets a chance to see him. One day I was walking the dog and I talked to him about it and I was on TicTac. Oh, you’re on Tic Tac. I’m on Tic Tac. And boom, I connected. That’s howfast I connected to him. That’s all you need to do. That’s as easy as it. But he of course didn’t have time to doall this stuff. Uh, but I and I but I got my customer from him.One one of my favorite Well, he been there for a while, of course. Butbefore we do say goodbye to you, Kevin, is there anybody that you would like to give a shout out to now that you’rehere? Anybody you want to shout out to? Did they have to um trying to think who else would beum let me see I’m trying to thinkbecause I don’t really like I said I don’t really have a lot of people out here um that are really big on on socialmedia. So Okay. Yeah. That’s fine. I would.That’s cool. All right. Uh, and I kind of don’t want to. And I also though, even ones that are kind of likethere’s far more than one. So, I kind of like don’t want to mention just one, too, to be honest, too.I don’t want to be like, well, hey, shout out to so and so, but like there’s there’s too many of them that I want to do that for. So, we’ll save that forsome other time. All right, cool. That’s fine. That’s fine. I understand it. All right. Well, Kevin Keith, thank you for being ourguest tonight. Thank you for awesome. It’s great to have you here. Uh, everybody follow him on Tik Tok. Veryinformative and entertaining videos. Yeah, I’ve been I’ve been watching him, too. So, I I know I’ve been seeing him. I’veseen you. We will continue watching our show. I’m watching them. Keep on watching that thing. I’ll be back in touch with you.Yeah. Like I said, I’ll keep posting about my life out here. So, will you be saving this as a post, too, in additionto that? Yeah. You know what? I I try I don’t know if this is I tried to stream it out on TikTok. It’s streamingout on YouTube. Twitch, kick, rumble. But the you the the Tik Tok the Tik Tok was spotty for me tonight. I I had to reI had to reapply to do the live streaming. It wouldn’t let me. So I was like, “Oh man.” Yeah.But it’s going to live on YouTube forever. This video the one you can look at it at YouTubewhat he said. And we’ll make the podcast version that’ll go out on all the podcast apps. That’ll just be audio, but that outthere. So yeah, we’ll give you all the links to that, Kevin. And you sweet. I appreciate cuz like I said, I’m trying to grow my my YouTube and TikTok. So, yeah. That’s awesome. Very cool, man. And maybe we’ll have you back. Oh, also, Uncle, you might want totell Kevin real quick about New Year’s Eve. Oh, oh, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. You want to be the next time to come. I have aspecial New Year’s revolution. Get ready. Set your drinks. Get what youwant to drink and we I we do it. And I’m the only one on. His show is not on.Mine the only one on. I might be on, but like I said, there’s so much there’s so much going on here on yours. But I might be able to be on foryou. Well, even if you called in for like 5 minutes, this is Kevin. I’m Yeah, I could totally do that.This No, I’m totally down to do that. And I could even, you know, live stream, you know, what’s going on here and cuzthere’s all kinds of things. So, yeah, I’m totally um remind me again closer to New Year’s, you know, obviously. What dowe know? do it. Get your That’s like the perfect idea. So, what we do is alsocuz that’s like there’s so much going on here. We also test beers. We also havetest beers 1 to 10. Of course, we don’t have many drinks right now. And but butNew Year’s I’m telling him to stack up. Oh, yeah. Stack up. I got a guy thattalks about drinks. What was his name? Bun Wine Bar. Bun Wine Bar. He’ll be on show.Oh, he’ll be on the show, too. Throw that out there. We’ll be put out there. It’d be perfect if you just called for acouple minutes like, “Hey, this is a Bombay Beach report, you know.” Oh, yeah. No, I totally I’m totally down to do that. Yeah,that’d be really cool. That’d be cool. Now, there’s there’s an option there. There’s We’ll stay in touch of course in Yeah, just like Yeah, keep me in touch likeremind me when it gets closer to that time. But I will definitely I’m definitely down to do that. Awesome. Okay. Okay.Kevin G, everybody that was our guest. Uncle, let’s mention that we are also onTic Tac. Oh yeah, we are on tic tac and uh it’s kicking up ticking and we arehaving um a constantly sidekick here to finally get moving on making some videosgoing pretty good. It’s coming along, let’s say, but slowly. So stick with us everybody.Stick with it. Uncle the podcast.com is the website. Uh uncle, I think that’s it for the week.You want to bring us home here? Um that’s a show. So long. That is it.Take care. Take care. Awesome. See y’all. See you. Good night. Good night.Yep. [Music]