The Reagan Library, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley

I, Ms. border-line socialist princess of the cosmopolitan coasts, had a thoroughly middle American, straight-edge Republican day. And all in the same amount of time it takes to drive to Malibu, that Streisand/Geffen vortex of the liberal elite. My good friend Shannon took me to her hometown, Thousand Oaks (T.O. in locals' lingo), a shiny, desert suburb about 30 miles up the 101-N. We stopped by her lovely grandma's flag lined neighborhood, had lunch at a family owned BBQ chain and tried on padded bras at Victoria's Secret. It was a suburban mom's dream and I couldn't have been better prepared with my neck brace and Vicodin prescription, thanks to a recent car accident.

Gated communities abound in the Calabassas/Thousand Oaks/Simi Valley area. So do man made lakes with little motor boats, strip malls fancied up with heart shaped shrubs and plaster statues and perfectly paved, almost empty roads, filled with regular looking people living seemingly normal, regular lives. The local schools have their lockers outside and everyone is friendly and casual. It was so fun and relaxing- the perfect area for our most relaxed President's shrine, grave, institute or whatever a Presidential library is exactly.

The Reagan Library sits on top of a rather ugly mountain in an under-developed part of Simi Valley. It is designed very much like a sprawling, wild west ranch and the view from the top of the mediocre mountain is sweeping and awe-inspiring, which I am trying to tie into some metaphor for America...nope can't do it. The Library includes a replica of the Oval office and there are jelly beans everywhere, including the gift shop (CAPITALISIM!). On the grounds are President Reagan's very impersonal grave, a really pretty piece of the Berlin wall, and a rose garden payed for by the Reagan's close friend, Merv Griffin (HOLLYWEIRD!).

A lot of the Library is under renovation right now in preparation for Regan's centennial in 2011. But there are two exhibits so cool that they made the $12.00 entrance fee more than worth it. One is a real Air Force One, retired in 2001, in a giant glass pavilion on the side of the mountain so that it looks like it is about to take off. It is smaller than you would think, shiny with beautiful blue accents and inside it is very dated, 80's chic. Very nice, elderly docents tell you little factoids about each section. Also in the pavilion there are limo's and tons of motorcycles, as well as a pub called "Ronald Reagan's" that for some historical fact that escapes me is an actual pub the Reagans visited in Ireland.

My favorite thing by far, and the perfect thing for any little girl tourist you need to entertain, is the insanely detailed dollhouse of the White House. The main house, the west wing and the east wing are all shown in minute, glorious detail...from the microphones in the press room to Bo Obama sniffing around the First Lady's dressing room. There are also re-creations of FDR's war room, Lincoln's Oval Office and a model of muti-culti workers chaotically building the White House while drinking ale and starting fires.

When we were still in T.O. Shanon took me to meet Wally, her old piano teacher who has a rustic old store behind a scrap yard off the main drag of the now posh Thousand Oaks. Wally, an old hippie from the mountains, greeted us warmly and told us how much things had changed. "When I moved here in the 60's, this road was nothing but dirt, and it was winding. It was beautiful up here, this was the wilderness, the desert, and it was so quiet. It was magic." Well, sometimes it still is.

Travel: B
Ease: B
Content: A
Subjective coolness: A-
Overall: A-

Directions to Library: Take 101-N to CA-23N. Take Olson Road exit. Keep right and merge onto Olson Road, continue on Madera. Turn left on Presidential Drive.
Hours:10am-5pm, Monday-Sunday.
Price: Adult-$12.00, Seniors-$9.00, 11-17-$6.00, 11 and under-free. Free parking at site.

The Magic Castle

Once, I went on a date with a much older guy who asked me out after hearing me sing one of his grandfather's songs. On the date he brought along HIS MOTHER, who glared at me all night with pursed coral lips, and smoked like a chimney. At the end of the night when this bespectacled Dana Carveyesque man asked me on another date, I almost said yes. I almost said yes because he lured me with his membership to THE MAGIC CASTLE.

The Magic Castle is legendary in LA lore. It really is a castle where an association of magicians perform and there are shows all throughout the night. The rules for admission are strict. You have to be a member or invited guest, men must wear jackets and women must wear cocktail dresses or "fancy pants suits". No photography or cell phones are allowed. So when Maureen hooked it up that we could all go, let's just say I was titillated beyond measure. It's always nice to feel part of the in crowd.

Once you enter the castle and pay a $20 cover, you are directed to a bookshelf. "Open sesame" you say to the bookshelf and the thing opens, and you enter a strange Victorian labyrinth filled with gilded bars, artistic curiosities, card tables and hidden seance rooms fashioned in heavy wood. Older, strange looking people (late in life Orson Welles..), some with long white beards, many fat and all dressed in their raggedy finest, sit at tables teaching each other card tricks while younger folk gawk with their mouths hanging open and a drink firmly in hand . There is a lot to gawk at- a restaurant, several bars, a museum filled with Edgar Bergen's and other ventriloquist dummies and a locked library containing all the secrets of the trade. Turn the wrong corner and you will be all alone staring at yourself in an upside-down mirror, or hearing a ghostly woman's voice ask you for a drink.

There are several shows going on at all times in different areas of the castle. As a guest you can go to them all, although dinner guests get preferential seating and I HIGHLY suggest you get a dinner reservation- if not you may end up feeling like a second class citizen because the employees at the castle all act like snobby butlers protecting the family silver. Since it feels like you are in a Miss Marple miniseries, or at least an episode of Scooby-Doo, all the guests are polite to each other and sociable and put on their elegant faces and voices. There is nothing better than seeing so many of my friends who I usually see wearing jeans and slouching on the couch, poised like ballerinas in their chairs and flowers in their hair. And of course, there is nothing better than men in suits.

And then there are the shows. I have always thought magicians were weirdos and placed them at the end of the show-biz food chain just above stand up prop comics. But lord was I wrong. The shows are amazing, particularly the main show which starred the very handsome and punnily named Justin Kredible. A woman danced with glow sticks and hula hooped at dizzying speed, a man turned cards into metallic flowers with lightning quick grace, and Mr. Kredible did all sorts of fancy tricks including making a woman's wedding ring somehow go from an envelope her husband was holding to being pressed in her bra. "I still can't figure it out!" the husband told us later. "I felt the ring!".

I was awestruck like a little girl and kept letting out an involuntary "WHAT?" throughout the show. And I think that's the true magic of the Magic Castle. In this city of dreams and illusions, one doesn't feel very much wonder at all. Not with the endless concrete, the flat temperature and cynical career moves. I was sincerely delighted and amazed multiple times, no more so than when the player-less piano (supposedly manned by a ghost named Irma) in the downstairs bar played every song I asked for with a whimsical sense of humor. The first song I requested was "The Way We Were." First it teased me with "Memory" from Cats and then launched into a rendition of my song. I could have stayed there all night, pretending to be someone lovelier, requesting songs and shaking off all the stark realities of the everyday.

Travel:A
Ease:A
Content:A+
Subjective coolness:A+
Overall:A+

Directions:7001 Franklin Blvd. One block north of Hollywood Blvd. Between La Brea and Highland.
Hours: 5pm-1am and Saturday and Sunday brunch.
Price:$8 for valet, $20 cover, and whatever you spend on dinner and drinks.

Cold Water Canyon Park

Sometimes dreams don't come true, darlings. Sometimes that fountain of youth just ain't real. Sometimes, no matter how long you hike the hills- the damn "Studio City Lake" at the intersection of Mullholland and Coldwater Canyon just doesn't seem to exist(thanks Lance!). I was walking for over two hours searching, then I got lost and some of that time was spent scooting on my butt. Having done my typical Hadley shtick, I took the narrowest path possible, my legs stung by tall nettles, and when I came to a steep incline my rainbows were insufficient so butt scooting down the mountain it was.


Coldwater Canyon park IS right at the intersection of Mullholland and Coldwater and it is home to the other worldly and largely absent( I only saw one employee on the whole compound) organization known as the Tree People. The tree people are all about trees and water conservation and teaching city kids that there are other plants besides sick looking palms. They also want you to pee in the restroom for Christ's sake as the sign to the right attests(however they are dog on leash friendly). There are green houses, classrooms, very pretty paths that smell like Christmas and a small and very picturesque amphitheater funded partly by Steve Martin where they have shows at night.

My biggest complaint about most trails in LA is how dusty the dirt paths are. The dust clouds entice large flies that buzz around because of the shitty smelling dust. So I was thrilled that the paths Tree People maintain are covered in sweet smelling and all around cooling wood chips. It makes everything so much nicer and you don't feel like a buzzard. But alas, once you reach the serious hike and enter the Santa Monica Mountains the large, exotic trees go away as do the wood chips, and you are left with just another dusty Los Angeles hike, with outstanding views of giant houses you wish you owned and people (probably show biz people) having conversations you wish you didn't overhear.

The worst was the obscenely vapid looking dad with a "Hawthorne RN" shirt on, who kept trying to make his daughter do math problems on her I-phone or else it was "back to the workbooks." As she tried to do the division problem he gave her, he kept goading her to move faster so she tripped not once, not twice, but three times. He, and I quote, "didn't give a shit." He is probably an actor. We are a charming breed. When I asked a gnarled, faux mountain man(read: set grip or electrician) for directions to the lake, he chuckled and basically said "There ain't no water in the mountains, ya hear, if you want water you should go back to your neck of the woods, to Lake Hollywood. It's too dry up here for any water, ya see."

So after hours of hiking, focusing on the wind(I kept thinking it feels cooler, so I must be near the lake) and the pretty sky(I thought I saw the water reflecting off the clouds) and lush man made pools in the canyon below(I WANT THAT!), I finally gave up my search and headed back to my car. Since I had no clue where I was it was cool using a particular tree, or grove or mansion as a signpost for taking the right way. I felt very Jane Austen and pretended I was on a walking tour until two large writers talking about their "Ellis Island project" pulled me out of my dream. I was never more glad to get in my car, crank up some air conditioning and drive back down to my neck of the woods and my own personal lake, Mr. Bathtub.

Travel: A ( I was telling Mike and Dylan last week- there is nothing in the world I love more than driving on Mullholland, it's just so curvy and decadent and decaying- it is so LA).
Ease:C
Content: C( If you live in Studio City or Beverly Hills it's a great place. If you live on the Eastside forget it- just go to Griffith Park instead).
Subjective Coolness: B-
Overall: C+

Directions: Take the 101 to the Mullholland exit. Go up Mullholland until you reach the aforementioned intersection. The address is 12601 Mullholland Drive. Parking at Tree People is free( beware, it is a sharp right turn).
Hours: Dawn till Dusk.
Price: Free.

Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine

Very pretty, very calming, very quiet...wait, did a mac truck just rumble by? Lovely flowers, nice old people, honeysuckle smells...oh man, I just got a whiff of that mac truck. Such is the dichotomy of the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine. It is very serene, very peaceful and right off of one of the loudest parts of Sunset Blvd. in the Palisades. How LA is that? Some of Gandhi's ashes are interred right next to a street teeming with angry cars. How Gandhi is that? Now that I think of it, very.

One of my favorite things about SoCal is how down we are with all religions, particularly Eastern ones. Paramahansa Yogananda,(you know I cut and pasted that) the man responsible for bringing yoga to westerners and writing the bestseller, Autobiography of a Yogi, founded the center in honor of the underlying truth in all religions. I guess that is why there are five markers that look suspiciously like gravestones with the names of religions on them by the lake. There are also little placards with words of wisdom from the major religions(no Scientology or Mormonisims...yet) placed all around the trees.

Admission to the garden and lake is free and was filled with people meditating on perfectly placed benches, elderly tourists taking pictures and one bigger lady who was bitching really loudly about her annoying son-in-law(someone needs to do her oms!). There is a little museum and gift shop next to the lake filled with lots of healing stones and Yogi's robes(PS- have you heard that Spencer and Heidi Pratt have spent over HALF A MILLION DOLLARS on "magic" crystals?). Expertly crafted water falls and a breeze from the lake really do make this a soothing, calming place.

The coolest and honestly magical part of the garden was at the meditation chapel inside the recreated Dutch windmill-don't ask me why they chose a windmill. Inside it is like a tiny old English church, all white walls and shiny wood. About ten people, some in robes, sat quietly meditating or praying or thinking or whatever, and the only adornments were pictures of the great teachers, all male of course- Jesus, Buddha, etc. I meditated in there for a while and I must admit it was lovely. It was like the air was rarefied in that small windmill on the lake and everything felt lifted and elevated and well... peaceful.

The Fellowship offers all sorts of classes in the garden and in the great white temple(which is open only for services) which looms overhead. The Gandhi peace memorial, while visually unimpressive, is a very special thing to have in LA.

Travel:B
Ease: B
Content:B
Subjective coolness: A-
Overall: B

Directions: Take Sunset Blvd. down to the Palisades. The lake/shrine/garden(this place has about a million names) is located at 17190 Sunset Blvd. Turn left and you will enter the free parking lot.

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday: 9am-4:30pm. Sunday: 12pm-4pm.
Price: Free, except for gas or whatever you cannot live without from the gift shop.

Riding the rails

I've always had this fascination with those homeless kids who like to jump on trains and have big dogs and the nose plugs and always seem to be from the great North West. I also HATE driving in LA. It is my number one complaint among many, and I have always thought of our metro system as exotic and foreign. (I mean my best friend was born here and has never been below in her whole life). So I thought I'd take one for the wussy hipster team and spend the day riding the rails ala my fellow blond sister Veronica Lake in Sullivan's Travels.

I walked the two blocks from my place to the Hollywood and Western Metro Station, took a deep breath, and headed down. I was immediately stuck by two things. One: It was almost empty. Two: A day pass is only $5 ! $5! I spend more on gas every freakin time I drive to Santa Monica. They have these weird passes they call TAP, which LD Hadley could not figure out how to use, so this nice old man helped me out. Realization Three: Everyone on the Metro (especially the Metro employees) are super nice. Like almost eerie nice. I guess it's a way to put their more recognized brothers in NYC and London to shame.

It was 2:30 in the afternoon. The trains run very promptly every 12 minutes. I knew I wanted to go to Union Station so I hopped on the Red Line. Like almost all the trains I rode, it was about half full, this one with Lakers fans on their way to the Staples Center. Everyone's newspaper seemed to be opened to a story about the Dodgers. Men in business suits chatted with young punks about the finals game. On the way there we passed about five of the places I have written about- places it had taken forever to get to by car.

I arrived at Union Station in downtown LA, grand and crowded, and remembered how much I miss the special communal feeling of the hustle and bustle that comes with public transportation. That feeling of importance that everyone has places to go and everyone's in this brave new journey together. I think that's sorely lacking in the LA that I live in. But a seed was starting to germinate in my mind that perhaps the LA I live in isn't the real LA at all.

I decided to go to Long Beach- so another super-friendly lady in a kiosk told me to take the Purple Line to the Blue Line. The Blue Line is heaven for a nervous voyeur such as myself since the train quickly becomes above ground and goes right through all of East LA. You pass right by the Staples Center then on through neighborhoods in Compton, Watts, Firestone, Artesia. The train is slightly elevated so you can see what people are doing in their yards- kids playing basketball, old women watering plants and lost looking guys playing craps. A whole metro culture exist- swap meets and notaries sit right next to stops loudly advertising their wares.

The Blue Line lets out right at downtown Long Beach. I took a walk on the waterfront (where I saw another of my old haunts-the Queen Mary). As I watched a bunch of kids hanging out by the water and fans lining up to watch the Lakers I realized that we Hollywood folk, whether we live in Echo Park or Brentwood, really aren't members of the real "Los Angeles" at all. We are like travelers passing through, making it our own insulated and sadly isolated community and wearing blinders to the vibrant and rough city all around us.

But like all adventures which start starry eyed and exhilarated ("I will always ride the metro, I am getting rid of my car!") it soon became tempered with boredom, vague disgust and disillusionment. I took the Green Line to Redondo Beach and for the first time the train car was dirty and the people were sad. Most of the Green Line runs right through the Interstate, which makes you feel very nauseous and the Redondo Beach stop was not actually at the beach but in the middle of industrial hell.

Depressed, I caught the high speed Silver Line bus (literally in the middle of the freeway) back to the Red Line and was immediately perked back up. The bus driver was very friendly and so were the patrons and we soon became banded together trying to get through the escalating mayhem that was downtown LA during the final Lakers game. Many surface streets were closed and we had to forge our way through the sea of yellow jerseys and police helmets. Regular bus riders were helping the driver figure out streets and a lovely lady kept trying to fill me in with what was going on in broken English and I replied to her in broken Spanish.

It was 8.00 pm by the time we made it to the 7th Street Station and I was tired when I finally headed back home on the Red Line. But then these three adorable but hardened kid brothers in my car began singing a beautiful rendition of "Nothings Going to Change My World." Everyone listened. A couple of people danced and a majority of folk gave the kids whatever money they could. I think this is the "real" LA, the LA that counts- we entertainment types are only here till the mill closes down and stops spewing gold to a lucky few.

Travel: A
Ease: B
Content:A
Subjective coolness: A
Overall: A

For Direction, hours and price: http://www.metro.net/

Watts Towers

Oh lord, I'm all fired up. First off- pictures of Watts Towers do not do it justice. Second of all- standing in front of Watts Towers does not do it justice. In both instances the humorless California sun blots out its thousands of colors and renders it a huge gray ghost ship.

The artist behind these massive towers, the Italian construction worker Simon Rodia, was crafting a ship(once inside the structure the layout of a ship is evident, down to the steering wheel on one of the spirals). But it is a ship full of color and love and hope. It was a ship back to his homeland and it was a ship that symbolized the promise of America and the American dream.

Rodia built this amazing testament to genius and commitment in his own backyard in Watts. Using metal, special cement and found objects(china, bottles, plates, rocks, shells) he created the towers from 1921-1954. Once you are inside the site, you are in a sparkling collage of color and texture and weirdness. The towers are a textbook on the creative process which this strange, apparently unlikable man celebrated by pressing his tools in cement, as if doing them honor.

He covered everything on his property with mosaics, from the fireplace he used to melt glass and metal, to his mailbox and the bench his wife used to sit on when she was waiting for him to come home(she eventually left him due to his obsession with his project.) Hearts are everywhere, on the ground and between the tiles. Flying buttresses connecting one tower to the other are covered in porcelain and ingenious ladders are built into the towers so that the 4'9" Rodia could stand steady as he built higher and higher.

The towers are in a park and sit next to a very cool Arts Center for kids. Everyone who
works here- from the guy who gave me my tour, to the ladies in the office, are super cool and joyful. The center provides free artistic programs for 6,000 at risk kids in the city of Watts. They make some money through tours of the towers, but otherwise they are funded by the city.

And now the city is threatening to cut off funding for the Watts Towers Arts Center and they are in great danger of closing. That means 6,000 children will be left without a place to create their American future, without a safe place to hang out after school. For those of you who haven't been there- Watts is scary disadvantaged. I like to think I am pretty well-versed in desolate landscapes, but Watts only compares to some rural areas I have seen in Mississippi and Jamaica. Their kids need this center.

Please go to http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stopculturalgenocide and sign the petition demanding the mayor keep his commitment to today's youth and continue funding both the center and the historical park. What a special place Watts Towers is. It is a living testament to the transformative power of art and its ability to make this sometimes gray world extraordinary.

Travel: C-
Ease: C
Content: A-
Subjective coolness: A-
Overall: B

Directions: Take the 101-S to the 110-S. After about 9 miles merge onto the 105-E. Take the Wilmington Ave. exit and turn left on Wilmington.
Turn left at E 108 Street, right onto Willowbrook Ave. and right onto 107th street. There is gated and street parking.
Hours: Wens-Sat. 10am-4pm. Sunday 12pm-4pm.
Price: Tour is $7 for adults and $3 for seniors and children(tour includes a 15 minute documentary).

LA River bike/walking path

Reflections along the LA River

(In the form of a Hollins University workshop poem)

Blurb, blurb, gurgle gurgle
concrete tub
not really a river, but alive just the same
with plants
and birds and mists and beer cans filled with earth

From Los Feliz Blvd. to the Colorado St. exit---
along the
I-5
I walk the paved path looking for dead bodies in the shallow stream
(a la Chinatown)

as the roar of automobiles is heard
their metal frames the only bodies in sight

I Inhale
the scent of fresh flowers and feces---
Lots of feces.

To my right I pass the golf course
where old men and swingers play
in the early morning drizzle
(thank god for residuals and unemployment).

It is Tuesday
and suddenly a horse ranch
appears through the chain metal fence.
Neigh! Slobber, bray.

Oh Thomas Wolfe, you were mistaken.
I am home again
back in Virginia where rich bitches and stable hicks
ride hard the dirt under drooping trees

our commonality continuing drunkenness from the night before.

I walk off the path under lovely foliage
A worker waves
saying you are welcome
Oh shit no
the jerk is actually yelling at me to get off the property
Screw you LA butt hole

there is no NO TRESPASSING sign!

I continue past the dumping grounds
LA parks and rec,
where recreation goes to die.
Men on bulldozers
push around old scraps of metal and
plastic playground pieces, kinda sad.

Whoa is that a body?
Nope it is just a bird.
Bummer.

I sniff the air, it smells of sea

It is another place of poo

this time human.

LA water treatment plant
your pretty reservoir and fountain
conceal your true filth

like Angelina Jolie.

Next is an office park straight
out
of the Midwest.
And always the concrete river
swelling from rain and pollution
and my tears
since I did not find a dead body and
will not
be
in
the
papers.

I turn around and walk back to my
Ford, dejected, soon I will be in a metal body
a speck on the 5
alone listening to Ira Glass...

Virgina Wolfe, Edgar Allen Poe,
something about the confederacy.




Travel: A
Ease: A
Content:A
Subjective Coolness: A
Overall: A

Directions: Path I took starts where Los Feliz Blvd. and the 5 intersect.
Hours: Dawn to Dusk.
Price: Free!

P.S.- This post is done with great unskilled love.