VICTORVILLE, Calif. — On a sun-baked afternoon in October 2008, a group of soft-drink executives and city officials gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony at an old Air Force base on the outskirts of the city, 100 miles east of Los Angeles.

They were standing on the edge of the Mojave Desert, one of the driest, most inhospitable terrains in America. Yet there they were, posing for photographs, gold-plated shovels in hand, to mark the construction of a massive new bottling plant and distribution hub for the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, a facility that will suck up hundreds of millions of gallons of water a year from this water-scarce area to supply soft drinks to 20 percent of its domestic market. (more…)

It’s 5 AM in Victorville, California, and I haven’t slept in 48 hours. Outside my second-story window, the sun is rising up over the jagged mountains across the desert. In the three months I’ve lived here, I’ve seen more sunrises than I have in my 28 years. There is something about living in a barren house in a half-empty suburb out in the middle of a sun-baked nowhere that brings out the tweaker in me—and judging by daily news reports, most of my neighbors, too.

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“It isn’t the heat, it’s the stupidity. Keep busy and don’t drink too many cold drinks and heat will never bother you.”

—George “Mack” McCarthy, Victorville real estate promoter

People have been asking me, “Hey, Yasha, what the hell is going on Victorville?” Well, I want to say not a whole lot, but I’d be lying.

Gale force winds howl across trash studded desert day and night. Dogs bark in unison every time a firetruck drives by, which happens often. There are traffic jams on church days and packs of greasy Harley-Davidson outlaws patrolling the streets on Saturdays and Sundays, too. There are a lot of fat people; many of them 18-year-old girls with kids.

There’s also quite a bit of colorful crime. Yesterday, a No Country For Old Men-style firefight broke out right next to an elementary school, with one guy pulling out a shotgun and blasting away at another guy who was taking cover behind a pickup truck. (more…)