In The Heat of The Ojai Valley

Time flies when you’re making television. I will back track to more than a couple weeks ago. (This entry doesn't really do the experience justice but it at least will give you another slice of our trip)

We finished up in Venice Beach with a postcard that we drew on the beach. Whenever we move to a new town or area, we mark it visually with a three-way hand drawn postcard when moved from the camera reveals the actual location.

After all these years, I got to Venice Beach with no time to find the Blue Blocker dude. That’s the problem going on a road trip trying to make a television show; it’s all there for us to touch and feel but inevitably someone corrals us into our bus and we drive away painfully wrenched from another possible Paradise.

This time we had to drive a couple hours to the Ojai Valley (pronounced O-hi) to meet Joel and Rebecca who would be adding a vegetable oil tank to our minty fresh beastly bus from hell. (I will dedicate a separate entry to this green goon of an automobile. In some ways it’s the perfect contradictory vehicle on which to go on a green journey)

The Ojai Valley community started mostly with ranchers and down home folk with beautiful arcades in the downtown area dating back to the 18th century now filled with a vibrant stretch of restaurants, clothing and craft shops. Being a couple hours from LA, it has been inundated with Hollywood folk. Apparently uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer owns a 10 000 acre ranch, and actor Matthew Perry’s father has a home.

We couldn’t have predicted our next couple days. We came to add a veggie oil system to the bus but we got a whole lot more. How do I explain?

It starts with Joel, who has, with his wife Rebecca, invented a system called Veg’n’Go that pumps and filters vegetable oil through diesel motors. Back at the end of the 19th century, the diesel engine was invented to run on peanut oil.

Joel, who looks like a young Ronald Reagan (as noted by Micah) and towered above us all, is the Grand Captain of the Holy Order of Veg Worship. It’s hard to explain but combined with the death trap heat of the valley, Joel and Rebecca’s secluded home in the hills, their determination, enthusiasm, Joel’s energy, and the larger implications of a veggie oil system, it all inspired a life changing experience.

To say Joel was enthusiastic about veggie oil is an understatement. In Joel’s world, you don’t drive on vegetable oil, you “veg HARD.” Say “veggin’ hard” one hundred times, each time with more enthusiasm, volume and grit in your voice and you can start to get a sense of our two days in Ojai.

It was hard not to get excited. Think about the paradigm shift of taking used oil gleaned from the back of restaurants and being able to put it in your tank and drive until you have to fill up again. The idea that one doesn’t have to pay for fuel to drive a car is unthinkable but possible. The second you start driving on veggie oil, all the cars on the road stop making sense in a grand way. Joel and Rebecca love that they can drive their “gas guzzlers” on nothing but reused oil – it makes them giddy like school kids and we were to learn that it would do the same to us.

The roads wove up and down the mountains that reminded of Tuscany, their surfaces brown from drought heavily littered with thick rugged oak and eucalyptus trees. It’s in the winter that the area is covered in green from top to bottom. Sunsets stretch across the huge sky with pink streaks that rival the 80’s.

The heat isn’t to be understated. The sun burns intensely turning the brain to mush. Joel and Rebecca usually do a conversion in five days, giving them time in the hot afternoons to go surfing.

But the tv schedule forced us to finish the conversion in a day and a half. That’s probably part of why the bus has been giving us many problems.

Joel is a hot rodder, with dreams of racing on a veggie oil system. He took one look at our shortbus and got depressed dubbing it the “Kermit Turd Hearse.” In rapid fire he strained to figure out how to make it cool. He wanted a serious air brush job, give us a wicked tail pipe coming out the side, put some high powered lights on the front – anything.

The conversion itself is like performing quadruple bypass. Lines have to be cut, rerouted; pumps and filters need to be added, fuel tank attached, and electrical needs to be wired and hooked up. I knew nothing about the inner workings of a vehicle but as Joel pointed out which parts connected to what and why, the mystery started to show itself as just a complex but understandable system.

Joel and Rebecca live on a two acre plot that has accrued an incredible amount since they moved there fifteen years prior. They have a few structures on the land; mainly their home and a large garage. All around are vehicles, all converted to veggie oil. They had some ridiculous number of them – most of which Joel was trying to sell. A few different kinds of campers, pick up trucks, commercial vehicles etc. I have never really wanted a car but being in California with the promise of being to drive on veg, I started thinking about it.

The long and short of it is that the conversion was dirty. The sun pummeled down and we all went a bit batty. It was too much to do in too little time. Joel ruled the roost and we, his students, complied with his instructions. He and Rebecca worked beautifully together, both with their own jobs – him the hardware, her the electrics. When the heat got too much for Joel and he wanted to go surfing, Rebecca would sort him out.

The next day we tried to start up the bus but it wouldn’t start. Turned out that the surgery overwhelmed it and it had to be taken across town to a mechanic. We were supposed to head north. Joel came around and commandeered the necessary details – and along the way took us to the back of a Japanese restaurant where he taught us to dumpster dive veggie oil. It was profound pumping up veggie oil while cars filled up on gasoline at the station right next door.

That night we ate a special cookie and checked out the Simpson’s movie at the local theatre. It was a little too good.