In 2001, Brent Blake had an idea: to build the world's largest Lava Lamp in his home town of Soap Lake, Washington. "I had no ulterior motives," he said, "other than to help the city and promote tourism and make everybody happy and increase the standard of living here a little bit."

Brent soon learned that to build a giant lamp would be very expensive. It might also be beyond the scope of human engineering. And the Lava Lamp company wanted nothing to do with it. "They were afraid that if we built a real, giant lava lamp, it might fall over and hurt somebody," Brent recalled. His counter-argument, "Then you build something that doesn't fall over," fell on deaf ears. Things looked bleak.

Then Target, the retail store chain, heard of Brent's plight. It gave him a $2 million, 24-ton faux-Lava Lamp that it had used as a "spectacular" billboard in New York City's Times Square. The lamp was only 50 feet tall (Brent had wanted something at least 60 feet tall); it was a mechanical imitation of a Lava Lamp, not a real Lava Lamp; and it lacked the encircling observation deck that Brent originally envisioned. But he was willing to compromise. The lamp was shipped to Soap Lake in January 2005.

Since then, the lamp has languished in a warehouse, in pieces, and little has been done. "I spent four years of my life promoting this project, and then I get this benevolent donation, and the city can't figure out what the hell to do with it," Brent said. "This is a $2 million, 48,000-lb object, and some people think that all it takes to put it up is two guys, a shovel, and a pickup truck."

Problems in recent weeks have once again cast a spotlight on a project that the elected officials of Soap Lake seem unable to manage. New, clear panels have to be cast to complete the "globe" of the lamp, but no one can be found to fabricate them. The electronic "brain" of the lamp, it turns out, was left attached to the parapet in Times Square, and no one knows if it will still work. And on October 10, the city took the design team that had been developing the Lava Lamp site and fired them.

Still, the mayor of Soap Lake insists that the Lamp, which had originally been scheduled to be unveiled in the Fall of 2006, will now be up in the Spring of 2007.

"That's completely bogus," says Brent. "These people figure they can do it all themselves. It's kinda like a Western attitude, 'I can do anything.' I don't mind it, but it only works to a certain degree. Then you get yourself in trouble."

"So many people had faith in us," said Brent, referring to the Lamp. "It can't end up being hauled off to the landfill. We have an obligation to get this thing completed." [10/21/2006]

February 10, 2012