UNFINISHED DOCUMENTARY, KINGDOMS OF THE RADIO | 1995
Once we put the word out on the street about what we wanted to build, it was amazing how quickly it caught on. There were a lot of heads that had been at loose ends, which was causing them heat in some of the small towns around the Bay Area. Small towns? What am I saying? They were all small towns! Still are, when it comes down to it. At least in the head.
A boonie rat buddy of mine named Ikaia Keala—we called him Sticky Icky in-country—used to do under-the-table construction jobs around the county and had somehow pulled the gig to dismantle the buildings on a crumbling old resort. I think local kids kept breaking in and the county was afraid of getting sued if some drunk teenager got himself parboiled in the hot springs.
Sticky said that we could have the salvage if; one, we helped him take it all apart, and, two, if we got it all the hell out of there. You should have seen the ragtag caravan of pickups, flatbeds, vans—whatever we could get our hands on—heading further up into the woods once we finished tearing those places down. We were like an army of ants all carrying pieces of some giant dead bug back to the nest.
We hadn’t had time to improve the way in, and there had been some genuine—and well considered, in my opinion—arguments against it. It would be harder for the county to sweep in and hassle us if we left the road impassible, so it ended being up to me to lift the salvage up and over the tangled growth with the chopper. It was really weird, I felt like I was back in ’Nam again, helping to establish an LZ.
Once a stick, always a stick.
Román Leão 
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