Desperado Pt. III

Maaka tells me he's a legend. He's a boilermaker-welder-fitter. A jack of all trades who works with his hands, metal, and heavy machinery bathed in the sweat, grime, and dust of the underground. He's got a tattoo to show his tribal affiliation, a tattoo to show the mourning he holds for lost family, and a tattoo to commemorate the man that he has killed. He's Maori from a small village in New Zealand. When the violence got to be too much he left, learned his trade by working for next to nothing in an informal apprenticeship and went on to service Australian tanks and submarines and lay tracks on the railroads before moving to Western Australia to make his name in the mining trade. He works in one of the most dangerous mineshafts in the region where he has survived five cave-ins. He thrives on the fear of dying. He even wrote a song about it-- and played it for me on his harmonica.

Desperado Pt. II

Jefferson was contractor on an army base somewhere near Dallas. Then his job got outsourced. He tried his hand as a salesman and got taken in a scam. He met his wife and moved to Australia where she was from, Brisbaine. He's been through training as a plumber, mechanic, and machinist. He's cleaned floors, trimmed trees, and painted roads. Nothing paid well enough or made him happy. Nothing fit. He heard that driving trucks in Kalgoorlie's mines paid well and he liked driving. He packed his bags, kissed his wife, and drove 2300 miles in 2 days across some of the most remote regions of the world to Kalgoorlie. Only then, did he pick up the phone to figure out how to get his dream job. Motivated, capable, and sincere as only a slow talking honest Texan can be, Jefferson is an ideal candidate for the job. He's in classes and waiting for an interview. "I've gone as far west as I can go. If I don't get this job, then maybe... I don't know."

Desperado Pt. I

When all else fails, you go west. When you can't get a job. When your lover leaves you. When you're running your past. When you can't find a home. Go west. Not unlike America, Australia developed from the east to the west. The frontier land is less fertile, less livable, and less welcoming; but coupled with these challenges are freedom and opportunity. Kalgoorlie attracts people seeking these things like bush flies towards the setting sun.

Jake has nothing but some sort of social service check to keep him going. $240 a month. He has nothing but a beat up car, a trailer, and a used SR-400 metal detector. He has named them Lucy, Marie, and Jody, respectively. "They are my family and I look after them," he says. He has landed a job as a caretaker on a startup prospector's plot. He looks after the equipment-and in return he gets to metal detect on the surface for missed alluvial gold. If he could just find a nugget he could turn his life around...maybe give it to his estranged wife or buy an extra tire for his car. He might be the happiest person I have met. He sings "My Way" like a gruff Aussie Frank Sinatra while setting up the bush camp he'll live in for the next two weeks, probably 50km from the nearest person. As I leave Jake...and Lucy, Marie, and Jody he shouts "Enjoy life, mate!" I can see him waving in the rear view mirror until he dNaisappears behind a cloud of fine red dirt.

Drinking

In Kal, even beer brewing hipsters wear day-glo shirts with reflective strips.

Drinking is universal. But how you do it, why you do it, and what you do while doing it changes wherever you go. In 1920 Kalgoorlie had a population of 28,000 people, 36 pubs, and 14 breweries. In 2009, Kalgoorlie now has a population of 30,000, 32 pubs, and 0 breweries. It makes you wonder 1) how do more people fit in less pubs? and 2) where does the beer come from? I've discovered that the beer is now shipped in on road trains (trucks that 3-4 tractor trailers long) from large national breweries...thank you globalization. I met some gents though who are looking to return Kal to its brewing best. They're company is called Beaten Track Brewery and they were kind enough to give me some samples and show me around. It started has just a hobby for these mining dudes and then it turned into a hoppy obsession. With 8 beers in development from a Belgian Style Blonde to a Rye-Wheat Extravaganza this microbrewery would seem much more at home in Brooklyn than in Kalgoorlie.

My camera crew (background) bravely documents a fierce headlock.

What seemed much more appropriate for the popular reputation of the town as a wild west partyville was a booze-infused Australia Day celebration that I attended at a local pub. The afternoon's pasttime consisted of girls getting liquored up with Emu Bitter, lubed up with jelly, and trying to pin each other in a baby pool full of more jiggle than Bill Cosby's fridge.

Mining students studying up.
But drinking in this town is not always about getting redonkulous. In this working-man's town a beer or two afterwork is a daily ritual. A self respecting guy might even just order a midi (half pint) at the pub and then be on his way. Its as much about quenching the thirst, bonding, and letting the dust of the day settle.

Wanna Muck?

He who gets dirtiest, wins.

Are you a young metallurgist, engineer, geologist, explosives expert, bartender, retail specialist, or recently unemployed? Are you a man? Do you live in Kalgoorlie? Yes? Then you probably spend most of your day thinking about mucking. Its competitive, it involves heavy tools, grunting, and mud.

Limbs are frequently sawed off.
The 8 events are mucking, sawing, railsetting, surveying, air drilling, goldpanning, hand steeling, and chugging beers. It requires strength, stamina, skill, and blatant disregard for safety. I witnessed the Western Australia School of Mining mucking team, the Wombats go through a rigorous training and if I didn't have to film it, I would have signed up for the team.

Wherever it is, that's where it is.

Entrance to a 3KM decline into the earth.
A common saying around here goes as follows "Gold is where you find it." In context of Kalgoorlie, this is not some sort of Zen philosophical credo about love striking when you least expect it or doing something that you love, it really just means "where gold is, that's where it is." And its usually underground.



Mechanical dinosaur eats 100 tons of rocky flesh in every bite.







Forget your notions of pick axes and shovels and "There Will Be Blood"y reveries. Today miners make big holes and you just drive right in with a big truck and a bogger and a front end loader and take what you want. Some of these mines go 3KM down--you'd better be outfitted properly.

Meanwhile or "picking up the pieces"

I think I speak on behalf of everyone back home in saying that a New York with out Dave Saltzman is a pretty dreary, raisin bagel filled, slightly less snarky place. But Dave's sojourn has impacted me particularly. Hi I'm Dan, Dave's roommate and medium time faithful sidekick. I had a dream last night where Dave was eating a bucket of gold nuggets and riding that giant shovel up and down a canyon.... all while singing the same three Billy Joel songs. Then he gave me permission to log into his account and give myself permission to post on this blog (thanks gold eating dream Dave!).

I don't have much to say now except that I have a new roommate named Ney, who seems like a cool guy, but really hates the Kennedys, works on Wall Street and used to like the Grateful Dead (though anything after some time in the 70's is total shit to him). I've also included a picture of one of the many bills I've had to learn how to pay in Dave's absence. I guess we're all growing up a little on this trip.....

Oh, and we miss you Dave.

Oh and I ate the rest of your hummus. Sorry bro.

Why Do People Want Gold Anyway?

I am so overwhelmed by the size of this shovel that I can't lift my arms up to cheer!

Well, gold looks pretty, like for jewelry and stuff. Its also a really good conductor or heat insulator for, like, computers chips and UFOs and stuff. But the real reason why gold is so valuable is because people really have a lot of fun getting it out of the ground. The Superpit, an open cut mining operation, for example, is a schoolboy's dream come true. First you get to blow up HUGE swatches of rocks. Then you get to load the rocks into HUGE trucks with even HUGER loaders. This results in a HUUUUUGE pit in the earth which I think is really just the way some miner's compensate for something else...
No camera tricks or photoshop.
Same trucks as above are located in the upper right corner and center 2/5 of the way down.

Kalgoorlie, not Calgary

I'm sitting on the 3rd leg of my flight (between Sydney and Perth) and strike up a conversation with the two people next to me. Since clearly I'm a Yank conversation turns to me and where I was headed. The trendy 24 year old woman sitting next to me is wearing a "Hollywood" sweatshirt and is returning to grad school in Perth after visiting some family in Los Angeles. She turns to me and says "Kalgoorlie? Where's that?" The surfer looking dude (many city dwelling Aussie's have this look it seems) turns to her and says "Its 600 kilometers east of Perth and its a shithole, I was born there."

The town hall is inexplicably painted a sickly greenish pink.

Kalgoorlie IS 600km east of Perth, IS NOT a shithole, and obviously easy to overlook. With a population of 30,000 its actually the 'bustling regional center' of last section of the Australian outback settled until you cross 3/4 of the way across the continent the other direction. If you think that's small you should see the towns that feed this metropolis which boast populations ranging from the upper middle three digits to whopping lower upper four digits. But don't call these ghost towns (even though you might see a tumbleweed blowing through) because there are actual REAL ghost towns--where a town was settled and abandoned but still leaves some short of architectural and infrastructure based shell...Population: O.

The Exchange Hotel, Friday night 11:52pm, center of local nightlife.

The consistent 100+ degree days, dessert dry climate, and isolation beg the question why come here in the first place. The answer to that question is the same reason why I'm here...and everyone else is here: gold.

The coin is about the size of a quarter and worth about 70 cents. The rock is about the size of a zucchini bread and worth about $15,000.

G'day! So sorry for the long silence since my first post, but I've been quite pre-occupied with my new surroundings. First, let me back up and explain my situation. My name is Dave Saltzman and I'm looking for adventure. 2008 left me dry mouthed and ready to wet my lips with the ocean spray wafting over the gunnels of a oil tanker or the condensation on the window of an artic snowmobile speeding towards the pole.

Instead I found myself nearing the new year with little promise and a hefty bill from my rare coin obsession. My beard had been going through some disturbing fluctuations and I couldn't find the right length that pleased most of my lady callers. I was lonesome.

As luck would have it, I recieved word of an opportunity to escape the desolate New York winter for a desolation of another kind. I was on my way to Australia! But lo, this wasn't your mum's australia. It wasn't some "Shrimp on the barbie", "let's have a game of cricket" type of thing. When I was 10 I saw a movie called "Crocodile Dundee" and it changed my life. I decided this was my chance to become what I knew I always could become. So now I find myself in Kalgoorlie Australia, sitting in a dimly lit room. More on this waning gold mining town later, but for now I can tell you my adventure has turned soulful. After a 50 hour plane, train, car, bus, foot, camel, small australian servant trip, I awoke in the blazing western Australian sun. And I realized that I had found adventure..... but was now looking for something much greater. In this dry desolate place, women appeared to me as little pools of life. I had found adventure and now it was time for me to find Love.


(or at least a lonely mining woman who wanted to hold me in her scrap metal roughed hands.)

Saltzman Goes Down Under

On Friday Jan 9th 2009 Saltzman began his 50 hour flight to Kalgoorlie Australia. This is his story.