(male announcer) Production funding for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations has been provided by: (female announcer) YRC Worldwide and public TV are natural partners.

We share the very important goal of connecting people, places, and information.

In this big world, that's a big job.

YRC Worldwide and public TV can handle it.

YRC Worldwide: honored to support the communities we serve.

(male announcer) The DeBruce Companies, proud to serve agricultural communities throughout the Midwest with high-speed grain-handling facilities, fertilizer, and feed ingredient distribution terminals.

(male announcer) And by Fred & Lou Hartwig, generous supporters of KCPT and public television, urging you to become a member today.

(man) ♪ Welcome to a show about things you can see ♪ ♪ without going far, and a lot of them are free.

♪ ♪ If you thought there was nothing ♪ ♪ in the old heartland, ♪ ♪ you ought to hit the blacktop ♪ ♪ with these fools in a van.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Randy does the steering so he won't hurl.

♪ ♪ Mike's got the map, such a man of the world.

♪ ♪ That's Don with the camera, ♪ ♪ kind of heavy on his shoulder.

♪ ♪ And that giant ball of tape, it's a world record holder.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out art in their own backyard.

♪ ♪ Look out; they're driving hard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard, ♪ ♪ checking out the world in their own backyard.

♪ (Don) Dear TV Mailbag, if "Holly would," what might TV weasels do?

Hi, Don the camera guy here, stuck in traffic on the 101 with a pair of 'em named Randy and Mike just around the corner from the world's foremost dream machine, but we're just passing by on our way to another part of town altogether.

We're heading for Watts, and if you're a folk art fan, you know why.

If not, get ready for some genuine jaw-dropping.

These spires have been reaching for the sky since the 1920s, when Simon Rodia started building in his own backyard.

(Mike) What did he do in real life?

What was his living?

In real life, he was a tile setter.

He was working in Malibu.

He was a laborer.

It was a learning process.

I assume the east tower-- the smallest one right here, this is the first one.

We have done X-rays at different members, and we know how he was connecting with wire ties, because he doesn't use no welding.

(Mike) No welding on the rebar at all.

(Zuylema) No weldings at all, just ties.

(Mike) Tied it all together and then concreted it.

(Zuylema) Yes.

He built his own ladder.

You can see on the north side of each individual tower, he built his own ladder to climb.

(Mike) Oh, I see.

He built it as part of the tower.

(Zuylema) Yes.

(Mike) That's very cool.

No climbing.

This is, like, a fence with a wooden support, and he start adding sections and going higher and higher.

(Mike) Was that so he didn't have to deal with the neighbors?

(Zuylema) He doesn't want to deal with nobody asking what he was doing.

No climbing.

This is the main entry of his house, Simon Rodia's house.

(Mike) Wow, so you came in, and right off the bat, you got this impressive sight of the ceiling and-- (Zuylema) Canopy, yeah.

(Randy) And there's the address.

(Zuylema) There is the address: 1765 East 107th Street.

(Mike) It's all over.

(Randy) This is like a gazebo, almost, with the-- (Zuylema) Gazebo.

This is the gazebo, yes.

Do we call it the gazebo, or... See, it's like a gazebo so much, it's called a gazebo.

(Mike) So he liked to cook, and he liked to entertain friends.

(Zuylema) He liked to cook, yeah.

He has a barbecue oven.

Sort of cactus or something, almost-- Cactus garden, yeah.

This is the garden spire.

(Mike) He really loved hearts too.

I see there are hearts stamped everywhere.

(Zuylema) Hearts, they are all over, yeah.

He was a very loving person.

Some neighbors, they said he was nasty, but he was in love.

(Randy) He was in love?

In love.

With... With his work.

With his work.

(Randy) And I assume this isn't saying, "Senior."

It's saying Simon Rodia.

(Mike) "And the tools I used to build the beautiful towers."

(Zuylema) Mm-hmm.

This is ship of Marco Polo.

(Mike) Do you suppose that's the ship he came over on?

(Zuylema) Could be.

Is this the tripod of Marco Polo?

(Mike) Marco Polo's tripod.

(Randy) Was he celebrating his heritage?

(Zuylema) I think that that's what he was, yeah.

The whole site, the whole property, is like a ship if you can see the shape.

(Mike) Kind of like the front of a ship, the bow.

He said it.

You didn't notice that?

I didn't notice that.

I noticed it, because it feels that way, the way it comes together.

I just thought he bought an odd lot.

(Randy) How tall again?

(Zuylema) 99 1/2 feet, the west tower.

Center tower is 97.5.

(Randy) Do you think he wanted 100 but just couldn't quite get it?

(Zuylema) I think it was 100, because there's something missing there.

(Randy) How'd he have the energy?

That's the main question: when he build it?

33 years of his life.

Weekends, holidays, nights.

Mm-hmm.

(Rosie) Simon Rodia didn't go to Beverly Hills.

He didn't go to Bel-Air.

He came to Watts, California, because this was a nurturing community, and it still is a very nurturing community.

There are many artists that came from this community that many people don't know about, for instance, Charles Mingus, who lived around the corner.

And as a little boy-- and it's documented that he used to bring broken bottles and broken glass to Simon and sold them to Simon.

So we have a rich community of artists who are still giving back.

(Randy) Would Simon have ever had any idea it was gonna lead to this, you suppose?

(Rosie) You know, Simon came to do his work.

He came to build the towers, and he built his towers, and he knew if he built them, people would come, and people have come.

Many people called him crazy, and when he left, he gave them to a neighbor who didn't call him crazy.

He didn't sell them; he gave them away.

And then it's our responsibility to continue to perpetuate those ideals of making art and giving of yourself and recycling some of the stuff that we throw away.

We're such a stuff society, so the more we can recycle, the better.

(Zuylema) This is a national landmark.

We own the towers, and the city manage the towers.

(Mike) We all own the towers?

'Cause if th at's the case, there's a dish that I think I lost that I'd like to take-- [laughter] (Don) And I'm going climbing.

Just kidding, of course.

We're well aware that the towers could have been toppled many years back had the good guys not stepped in, good guys like Seymour Rosen, who passed away just days before.

Seymour, this wide shot's for you.

One thing we have learned doing this show is that there's always someone making something somewhere, and in this case, it's mere miles away.

Lew Harris and his sister Dianne call it the tenth wonder of the world, so how can we resist?

(Lew) I used to put cars across the lawn, and the neighbors got so crazy, and they kept talking to the people, you know, downtown, and the people kept running out here, so I decided I would change, and I said, "I'm gonna spit shine.

I'm gonna show you all something."

So I decided to put up a sculpture garden, you know, one at a time.

All this stuff come one at a time.

It didn't come all at once.

(Mike) So you just started collecting this stuff?

Where'd you find it all?

(Lew) All on the East Side.

Mostly, this is industrial garbage.

Now, you don't find no everyday garbage can with this in it.

(Mike) No, I'll bet not.

(Lew) You really be looking.

(Mike) I'll bet.

I looked for years, and then I saw it hanging out the garbage can, and she said she could make a sculpture out of it.

She shouldn't have never said that.

We fell in love with it because it was so beautiful.

It reminded me of crystal.

And we didn't know at the time that it wasn't crystal until we started working with it, you know?

(Lew) Now, this material here lasts forever.

You know, Michael Jackson over there been out there for maybe 15, 20 years.

(Don) Michael Jackson looks better than Michael Jackson.

It's holding up better than he is.

Well, that was when he was pretty.

[laughter] (Randy) So some of these things were in some pretty big, industrial places, I'm guessing.

(Lew) Yeah.

Yeah.

(Randy) And were you just walking around, taking one of these, taking one of those?

(Lew) No, just driving by.

You know, just looking.

Actually, just hunting.

That's what we were doing: hunting.

[laughs] (Dianne) Every time we would go to the garbage, he'd tell me, "What are you gonna do with that?"

Whatever I see, I have to tell him right on the spot what I'm gonna do with it.

Otherwise, I couldn't get it.

[laughs] (Lew) You know, most people that make big sculptures, they always have somebody else to make 'em.

I decided to make my own, and then I could do whatever I want to do with it.

I don't have to make it like a drawing.

Do you know that to think is free?

And it don't cost you nothing, and that's some of the hardest things for people to do.

All you have to do is just sit down and be still so you can think.

But most people don't want to do that.

They want somebody else to bring it to them.

I decided to go get it.

(Randy) And people come by and look at it.

(Lew) Come by and take pictures, wave at 'em.

When you wave at people, that's a sign of love.

Believe me, they love it.

People come back for years and years and years.

You know, you got to let somebody know, "Hey, somebody is here," you know?

And a lot of people get up, and they have bad moments and bad, you know, experiences, and when you wave at 'em, you say, "Oh, somebody care."

[laughs] What is that?

(Mike) That's the world's largest ball of videotape.

(Lew) Oh, yeah?

We think this might be th e 11th wonder, but... (Don) Lew was a bit baffled by the ball, but he liked the part about recycling... And it's heavy.

Set it down.

(Don) And appreciated the generous donation from viewers like you to keep the wonder humming.

It was about this time, with choppers starting to circle and traffic beginning to grow, that we elected to play it safe.

Once past Graumann's, and we'll call it a day.

Cheap motel, here we come.

Now, here's the thing: in a megalopolis like this with thousands and thousands of people in every direction, we've started the day in search of a fiberglass giant from the clan they call Muffler Men, and this is one fine specimen... (Randy) He's snappy.

(Don) Nicely adapted to the neighborhood and his new line of work.

(Randy) Classic pose, isn't it?

(Mike) That's it: one up, one down.

I love his tiny little bow tie and little mustache.

He has the whole transmission in his hands.

He's good.

(Don) Now, East L.A. has long been known for its south-of-the-border flavor, but how's this for a clash of cross-cultural cuisine crammed into one?

This would be Montebello, but it's not just the food that's drawn us here; it's Elias Telles, USMC.

A bricklayer by trade, Elias picked up a paintbrush and, in remarkably short time, found folks happy to pay for his work.

(Elias) Oh, about maybe five years ago, there was hardly any work at all.

Masonry had really slowed down.

So my brother was selling at Fairfax, Fairfax High School.

A lot of movie stars go there, and a lot of foreign visitors go there too.

So he told me, "Why don't you come with me?"

I said, "Why?

I got nothing to take."

So he said, "Well, just do something," so I painted some angels on some old wooden fencing that we had taken down, and they sold.

Well, that's not too bad.

So I did it a couple more times, but I painted some ball players, and they sold too.

Some of the first things I did were black Civil War heroes.

And then, like, I painted Mexican-American Civil War veterans.

I painted Lincoln, and I have a couple of Lincolns overseas.

One's in New Zealand, one's in Japan, and one's in Australia.

I like painting the obscure people in history, like the Negro League.

I love that time period.

I like their uniforms.

I like their style of playing.

(Mike) Do you read a lot of history?

I mean, where do you find these guys?

(Elias) I'm a big history buff, and I do read quite a bit.

I work with acrylic because it dries really fast for me.

I've done some in oil, but it takes forever to dry.

I wanted to age some of them when I first started, so what I was doing, I was putting the coffee on 'em and then varnishing them, then putting them up on the roof.

I was able to hide any mistakes with the coffee, and when I first started, you could almost smell the coffee, so I was telling people, "You get a doughnut with every painting."

I have some on cardboard, on Masonite, on cement.

Yeah, that's on cement board.

I had some left over from a tile job I had done.

So instead of--you know, instead of throwing them away, I just paint on them.

(Mike) Just about what you come across, or... (Elias) Yes, just about what I come across.

I don't look out, you know.

I don't make a special effort to buy canvas, you know.

(Randy) Five years of painting, that's a pretty fast arc on this kind of thing.

A lot of people don't have that kind of turnaround.

(Elias) Yeah.

(Randy) You somehow knew how to do this.

How did you know how to do it?

(Elias) I was in the Marine Corps, and I've been a mason all my life, so I'm pretty thick-skinned.

I don't get my feelings hurt right away, so I wasn't afraid to paint.

If somebody didn't like it, I wasn't gonna break down and cry, you know?

And I found out in life you can't please everybody.

You just do the best you can.

And I enjoy what I do.

It's not like I'm taking a big effort on it.

And I paint 'em pretty fast.

About 90% of the people I come in contact with, just like you guys, are really, really nice.

And there's always that 10%, but you find that everyplace.

(Mike) Give us time.

We're gonna change that.

(Don) We wanted to know more about that 10%, since Elias does do business with famous showbiz folks, but he's not the kind to sell and tell.

We left our Semper Fi-ing host with some first-rate reading material and motored out to meet up with a well-known motorway: a stretch of old Route 66 also known as Foothills Drive.

Plenty of places still use the name, but big boxes and chain stores have pretty much taken over.

I've donned some festive orange neckwear for the occasion, but I fear that disappointment may loom ahead.

(Randy) It doesn't really ap pear to be open.

Oh, dang it, bu t we can still stand there.

(Don) Oh, yeah.

(Mike) The ball gets a moment of glory.

Yeah, what's a ball except a black orange?

(Don) Thinking like that should take us far-- or at least down the road to Rialto, which 66-ologists will recognize instantly as the site of Wigwam Village Number 7, the last of Frank Redford's tepee-style lodges and one of just three still standing.

(Manoj) We get a lot of people stopping in that are now older, retired, and they remember this place when they were driving by as kids, and, you know, I guess it was a big thing back then.

The original design and paint scheme was a little different.

We kind of went with a natural native Indian color scheme.

We have people stopping in, and they'll mention, like, "This place looks like it was built, like, a couple months ago or this year," you know?

I explain that, you know, it was built in 1949, and they're just shocked.

(Don) You know, I was built in 1950, and this is in much better shape.

Whoa.

(Mike) Wow, look at this room.

Who wouldn't want to stay in this room when you could-- I mean, over a motel-- that one with a number bigger than five and smaller than seven that we won't name.

(Manoj) These were the original rooms here, the inner half-ring, and then there was add-ons.

Oh, speed bump here.

Watch out.

Careful.

Slow down.

Hazard.

(Mike) I bet kids love it.

I'll bet kids must just be enthralled.

(Manoj) Yeah, they'll run around and, you know-- it's just--it's like an amusement park for them.

And you know what I just noticed?

This old car.

I don't know how it got here.

You're kidding.

No.

Do you guys know wh at model it is?

It's a Tempest.

It needs a lot of work-- restoration.

(Randy) Yeah, it's a fixer-upper.

(Don) If anyone could do the rehab, it might be Manoj.

Tempest aside, this place is immaculate.

But, having thrown out this old slogan, he could use some marketing muscle.

Enter the Mike Murphy School of Television Acting.

"It's clean, it's tidy, it's neat, "and it's really fun to stay in a wigwam, and you should come stay in a wigwam."

(Don) And take two.

Well, it's fun.

It's nice.

It's neat.

It's different.

I think everyone should enjoy a stay in a tepee...

Either here, Arizona, or in Kentucky... Or all three, maybe, just to kind of get a different-- you know, do a little-- a road trip.

(Don) By Jove, I think he's got it.

And we've got an a.m. date in the desert.

More 66 in the morning.

Let's see, now, Barstow and San Bernardino are both in that famous song, but Helendale?

Not so much.

It might have made the cut had Elmer Long's bottle ranch been blooming back then.

Elmer grew up by the beach, but he's loved the desert since he was a kid.

As for inspiration, he does say that Miles Mahan's late, great Hulaville just a few miles away may have played a part.

(Elmer) I talked to him in the '70s and went there and visited him one day and went away and never thought about it again for 20 or 30 years.

And then my dad used to collect bottles.

Well, I did too, and I put some out on a post out here kind of like old Miles Mahan did, and it looked good.

I could see it from the house.

I put a pole up here in a corner of the yard.

Within 20 or 30 minutes, somebody took a picture.

And I thought, "Well, let's try something."

So I put another one up.

Before long, there was cars lined up everywhere out there.

(Randy) It's like a forest in here.

(Elmer) It is.

(Mike) You may be the only guy in the desert with a forest.

(Elmer) Well, I think I am.

I'm probably the only guy in the desert like myself, whatever that means.

(Mike) Th is one gets my attention ri ght here.

Well, that's a fuel tank for an aircraft.

I found this the other side of Barstow.

They were selling it on the road.

[laughs] I like this one 'cause it's got arms coming out of it.

(Elmer) Oh, the cactus?

Yeah, that's, uh-- those bottles belong to my dad.

Are these those embalming fluid bottles?

Uh, medicine, probably.

Yeah.

(Elmer) 1914 license plate.

That bottle came from Missouri.

(Randy) Now, there's not some intersection missing a light over here, is there?

(Elmer) No, no, no.

I'm just finding a place to put all the junk I have.

There's more.

I've got stuff in the house; I've got stuff in the buildings out back in a trailer.

I'm full.

And there's a working parking meter.

Hour and 20 minutes for a quarter.

Don's quarter.

We're good.

[vintage car horn honking] Yeah, I guess it takes a certain kind of attitude to live out here, doesn't it?

(Elmer) It does.

Well, I don't know.

I don't mingle too much.

I'm too busy.

I talk to people who come in through the gate, but as far as going here and going there, unless it's for a specific purpose, I don't go anywhere.

I'm too busy.

I found that in a homestead at Edwards Air Force Base outside of Boron in 1961.

An old hand drill with a pinwheel.

And when the wind's blowing, it works pretty good.

This is one of my ideas.

I dig these holes, and I'm bringing up all this stuff, these rocks and everything-- lots of 'em-- and how am I gonna get rid of all these rocks?

So I thought, "Well, I'll paint 'em."

And I put 'em in a trough over here that says, "Take one," right there.

I might as well have just sold them, but nothing here costs money.

It's all free.

I was gonna say, there's a flaw in your plan here: nothing here costs money.

Well, I'm rich already, so--look at me.

It's a joy.

It's just beautiful when the sun hits this stuff.

It's just fantastic.

I mean, it grabs me.

(Randy) You're doing it 'cause it's fun?

It's fun.

I enjoy it.

Everybody should have fun.

(Randy) And people don't have enough fun, do they?

(Elmer) Hell, no.

They don't even know how to smile anymore.

But they come in here, and they smile.

(Mike) Do you drink any of this stuff?

(Elmer) Well, that's...

I don't know if I want to put that on camera or not, but... in the interest of art, yes, once in a while, I'll have one.

(Don) With answers like that, Elmer might consider running for office, though we suspect he doesn't have time.

We loaded up some rocks to clutter up the van and rolled back down to Victorville, original home of those riding and roping Rogers.

There's also a Route 66 museum just over there and, under this elm, what remains of Brownie the Railroad Dog, yet another of those four-legged favorites who got too close to the trains he loved.

(Mike) You know, usually, this show's a lot of fun, but sometimes it's not so much fun.

You got to have your ups with your downs, your sugar with your salt...

Your brownie with your ice cream.

(Don) But there's no time for sorrow or dessert.

We're pushing like mad through miles and miles of desolate desert, hoping to make it to Landers by the close of this show, which it appears we have.

That dome is known as the Integratron, built by one George Van Tassel with guidance he got from extraterrestrials.

It's an acoustic experience of the highest kind, they say, but only if you're in it, which we are not.

So why not some catch?

We've got guest gloves should aliens drop by.

It's a sound chamber.

Apparently, you get in there, and you hear all sorts of acoustic phenomena.

Like slapping leather?

It's supposed to be very calming.

You're supposed to come out of it like almost a different person.

(Randy) Th at's good.

Hey, there.

Don't hit our van.

(Randy) Do you put your pants on one leg at a time?

The Venusians put 'em on three legs at a time.

Yeah.

Uh-oh.

Watch out.

Car coming through.

It may be the busiest deserted corner in America.

Well, there they go over there by Mike.

We're in the middle of the desert, and there's more cars here... Whoo, yeah.

We've been reduced to standing on a corner yelling at cars going by.

(Don) Maybe so, but this cell rejuvenation thing just might be working.

I say let's play two... hundred.

And I am Don the camera guy signing off.

(female announcer) To learn more about the sights on this show and how to find them, visit us on the web at: DVDs, tapes, and a companion book to this series are available by calling: Captioning byCaptionMax www.captionmax.com I think it's for you.

I have to drive here.

I can't take a banana call.

Check that out.

The world's largest ball of videotape.

Oh, boy.

Take that thing.

This thing weighs a ton.

And I like attention.

(Mike) Ap parently.

Birds like it; cats like it; dogs like it too.

(Randy) We like it.

[laughs] They're $60, but for you guys, $100.

(male announcer) Production funding for Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations has been provided by: (female announcer) YRC Worldwide and public TV are natural partners.

We share the very important goal of connecting people, places, and information.

In this big world, that's a big job.

YRC Worldwide and public TV can handle it.

YRC Worldwide: honored to support the communities we serve.

(male announcer) The DeBruce Companies, with facilities providing customers with market information and marketing opportunities for domestic and international grain, fertilizer, and feed ingredient businesses.

(male announcer) And by Fred & Lou Hartwig, generous supporters of KCPT and public television, urging you to become a member today.